Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH RAILWAYS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Home Ownership

Mr. Gow: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many houses and flats owned by local authorities have been sold to their former tenants since May 1979; and what proposals he has to extend the opportunities for home ownership within the Principality.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Walker): Over 79,000 dwellings have been sold to sitting tenants by local authorities and new towns in Wales. We are encouraging local authorities and housing associations to undertake a range of low-cost home ownership schemes. The most important initiative is the introduction by the Development Board for Rural Wales of the experimental flexi-ownership scheme, which allows tenants to buy their homes at a weekly outlay broadly the same as their rent payments.

Mr. Gow: Is not the opportunity for the extension of home ownership at the heart of the Government's policy? Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us hope that his new initiative in Wales will be followed elsewhere in the kingdom?

Mr. Walker: There is no doubt that the initial reaction to the flexi-ownership scheme launched only a couple of months ago has been one of enthusiasm by the tenants. The principle certainly needs to be examined and I hope that one day it will be applied to the whole country.

Mr. Alan Williams: What advice would the Secretary of State give to those who followed his earlier advice to buy their home and who now find themselves caught in a Government-created trap, at their wits' end trying to meet higher mortgage payments and dreading the arrival of the first poll tax demand, yet knowing that they will have lost their right to be rehoused if their house is repossessed?

Mr. Walker: I have no doubt that, if that is the case, the Labour party will revert to its policy of trying to stop the sale of council houses, as the right hon. Gentleman did when he was a Minister at the Welsh Office. However, I believe that all 79,000 are delighted with their purchase.

Mr. Wigley: Does the Secretary of State realise that many people who have bought their council house—we all want maximum home ownership—find it next to impossible to keep up their mortgage payments and that many are back on waiting lists for council houses? Those waiting lists have almost doubled in some parts of Wales. What will the Secretary of State do about it?

Mr. Walker: I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not believe that many people who bought their council house at an enormous discount are back on the waiting lists. The majority of the 79,000 are delighted. I hope that the numbers will extend considerably in the coming years.

Mr. Murphy: Does the Secretary of State accept that the proposals of Housing in Wales, Tai Cymru and housing associations in Wales are wholly inadequate to deal with the problems of housing for at least 70,000 people who are on waiting lists in the Principality? What about the 6,000 or 7,000 homeless people? Cannot the Secretary of State see that the people of Wales are looking to him for some way out of this misery?

Mr. Walker: No, Sir. I am proud that in the lifetime of this Government there has been an enormous improvement in the housing stock of Wales, which dwarfs anything achieved by our predecessors.

Standard Spending Assessment, Clwyd

Dr. Marek: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the specific reasons for the standard spending assessment per capita in the county of Clwyd being the lowest in Wales.

Mr. Peter Walker: Standard spending assessments for 1990–91 have been calculated to reflect as accurately as possible the relative position of every local authority in Wales.

Dr. Marek: Is the Secretary of State aware that although the consultations might have involved the county councils, no one in Clwyd, particularly on Clwyd county council, can see why the standard spending assessment should be so low? It is plain daft. This is a serious matter. Members of Clwyd county council want to see the Secretary of State and one of his Ministers about it. Will he agree to meet them?

Mr. Walker: It was not just a matter of discussions with the county councils; the standard spending assessments for 1990–91 were fully discussed and agreed by Welsh local authority associations. Clwyd might be dissatisfied with some factors, but, as a proportion of its relevant population, it has fewer pupils to teach and the second lowest unemployment rate in the counties. Clwyd county council should see how it can save by efficiency, instead of making extraordinary estimates, such as it is making now.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be general acceptance of his view that there is scope for increased efficiency, but that nevertheless Clwyd finds itself a victim of the change in formula? Is he further aware that within Clwyd, the district of Rhuddlan is simultaneously being hit in exactly the same way by the change in the method of calculating the formula? I hope that he will pay careful attention to that.

Mr. Walker: My hon. Friend will agree that, if the Government sit down with local authority associations to try to agree a formula to assess needs and those associations agree to that formula, the Government cannot do much more.

Regional Development Fund

Mr. Knox: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the total value of grants which Wales has received from the European regional development fund in each of the last three years.

Mr. Peter Walker: Figures for European regional development fund assistance committed in Wales in each of the past three years are as follows: 1987, £57·8 million, 1988, £63·3 million and 1989, £28·8 million. The decline in 1989 was due to delays in Commission approvals. That will result in a rise in commitments in 1990.

Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those grants play an important part in helping to create more jobs in Wales? Is he satisified that the source of those grants is sufficiently well publicised?

Mr. Walker: Yes. The fund has played an important part and the Welsh Office has done a great deal in endeavouring to negotiate a range of grants for the benefit of Wales.

Dr. Kim Howells: Will the Secretary of State ensure that whatever EC grants are available are used to help to remove the Albion colliery tip above the village of Cilfynydd, which is just a few miles down the valley from Aberfan? That village is threatened by the old Albion tip, which is causing grave discomfort to many of my constituents, who are also worried about their property.

Mr. Walker: Irrespective of European grants, it is obviously important that all those concerned take the action that is required. I understand the hon. Gentleman's deep concern. As he knows, that matter is a basic responsibility of Mid Glamorgan county council. It has applied for grants to take certain action and the Welsh Development Agency has speedily agreed to give those grants—I believe that it approved them today or last week. I shall certainly keep a close watch to see that all the assistance needed by that county council is given.

Mr. Livsey: On the RDF, what will the Secretary of State do about the integrated operations initiative put forward by Powys, Gwynedd and Dyfed? That initiative has been accepted as worthwhile by the Welsh Office and by the EC, but, apparently, it is now being blocked by central Government. Will the right hon. Gentleman do something to ensure that that initiative stays at the front of the queue instead of being pushed back?

Mr. Walker: It is not a case of pushing back the initiative. Important negotiations and a change of emphasis are taking place in the Community. We certainly do our best for all the applications.

Cleddau Bridge

Mr. Nicholas Bennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what financial assistance has been provided since 1979 to Dyfed county council in respect of the capital costs of the Cleddau bridge, Pembrokeshire.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. Wyn Roberts): The Government made a £4 milion interest-free loan to Dyfed county council in 1979. No assistance has been provided since then.

Mr. Bennett: Although I welcome the £4 milllion loan provided by the Government, is my hon. Friend aware of the considerable annoyance felt in Pembrokeshire because my constituents must pay 50p every time they cross the bridge when the rest of the road system is free? Why have my constituents been singled out for such an imposition when the rest of the road system is provided from taxation?

Mr. Roberts: I assure my hon. Friend that his constituents have not been singled out, but Cleddau bridge is owned and operated by Dyfed county council. The policy on tolling operated by the present Government is the same as that operated by successive Governments—that users who enjoy the exceptional savings in time and money made possible by estuarial crossings should contribute directly to the costs involved through the payment of tolls.

Mr. Gareth Wardell: Would the Minister care to tell the House how long the missing link in the county of Pembrokeshire on the M4 has been delayed because of the expenditure on roads by the former Secretary of State for Wales?

Mr. Speaker: Will the M4 go over that bridge?

Mr. Wardell: Yes.

Mr. Roberts: I am happy to assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the section of road to which the hon. Gentleman referred is far from Cleddau bridge. The hon. Gentleman should know, however, that we have eased congestion along the Baglan to Lonlas section by improving the Baglan roundabout. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman has not travelled that way recently. We have plans to improve all three sections between Baglan and Lonlas.

Labour Statistics

Mr. Roy Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the latest unadjusted figures for unemployment in (a) Newport, (b) Gwent and (c) Wales; and if he will give the equivalent figures for 1979 on the most nearly comparable basis.

Mr. Peter Walker: On 11 January 1990, the numbers of unemployment claimants in the Newport district, Gwent and Wales were 4,754, 14,051 and 90,349 respectively. Unadjusted figures for 1979 are not available on a basis that enables a valid comparison.

Mr. Hughes: There have been at least 23 changes in the method of compiling unemployment statistics, all of which have reduced the overall total. Is poll tax yet another secret weapon in the Government's armoury to reduce the figures? The cost of collecting rates in Wales was £9 million, whereas poll tax will cost more than £25 million to collect, the cost of which will have to be borne by the charge payers. Is not it sheer hypocrisy by the Government to lecture our local authorities on financial prudence when they behave in this way?

Mr. Walker: The income for the local authority in Newport must greatly benefit from the fact that unemployment there was 92 per cent. higher at the time of the general election than it is now.

Mr. Denzil Davies: Is not the Secretary of State aware that there are 120,000 fewer industrial employees—involved in manufacturing, production and making things—in Wales now than there were in 1979? Is it any wonder that income per head in Wales is lower than in 1979 and that we are the poorest region in Britain?

Mr. Walker: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, because the figures that he has just mentioned were given in a reply by me, the main drop involves those employed in the coal industry. I am glad that in the past three years there has been a big increase in the number of jobs in manufacturing. I am also pleased—obviously the right hon. Gentleman is not—that there has been an enormous increase in the number of jobs in the service industries. Many people in Wales delight in the fact that there is an enormous increase in both industries.

Mr. Jack: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many people were employed in Wales in (a) 1979 and (b) in December 1989.

Mr. Peter Walker: In September 1989, the latest date for which information is available, there was a civilian work force in employment in Wales of 1,158,000. In September 1979, the figure was 1,160,000.

Mr. Jack: My right hon. Friend's interesting answer reflects some of the problems with which he has had to cope in the restructuring of the Welsh economy. Can he be more specific and tell the House some of the initiatives that he has taken to boost employment in manufacturing and service industries? What programmes will he be pursuing in the next 12 months towards those objectives?

Mr. Walker: If one takes into consideration the increased numbers in higher education in Wales compared with 1979, the figures for 1989 were higher than the 1979 ones. I am delighted that a range of initiatives have brought the financial services to Wales and a great deal of overseas investment. During the past three years Wales, with 5 per cent. of the population, has had 20 per cent. of all the inward investment into Britain.

Mr. Foot: Does the figure that the Secretary of State gave mean that the Government have just got back to the employment figure for Wales that existed in 1979 when he, along with his associates, ran an election campaign to say, "Labour isn't working"? Will he respond to the invitation that I have given him many times, to make in Wales the speech that he occasionally makes in England, and give the figures of how much has been poured down the drain through the huge numbers of unemployed that have existed throughout the past 10 years? Those figures are still very high and much higher than in many parts of England.

Mr. Walker: As the right hon. Gentleman knows better than anyone else, pits closed on a large scale under Labour Governments, as well as Conservative Governments. In the past 10 years there has been an enormous drop in the numbers employed in both the coal and steel industries, yet, in spite of that, this year there are as many people in employment as there were in 1979. I am glad that there is a great diversity of jobs, mainly in the private sector.

Mr. Bill Walker: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the difference between the time of the Labour Government and today is that those in work are working for companies making profits, so their jobs are much more secure than they were under the Labour Administration?

Mr. Walker: Perhaps the most important fact for Wales is that it now has a diversity of job opportunities that it never had before.

Local Government Finance (Advertising)

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much has been spent in total by his Department to advertise and provide information on the poll tax in Wales.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: I expect the total expenditure on information relating to the community charge to be around £400,000 in 1989–90.

Mr. Jones: Now that we know that the average poll tax for Wales will be at least £47 higher than the Government's estimate, and that the Government's only response is the ridiculous idea of rate-capping Welsh local authorities that have never been accused of overspending by any Government, why do not the Government accept that all their plans for propaganda for the poll tax to persuade the people of Walls that it is a wonderful tax have been an abject failure? Should not the Secretary of State join his colleague, the Secretary of State for the Environment, and, rather than rate-cap Welsh local authorities, go cap in hand to the Treasury to get more money for them this year, to save hard-pressed Welsh ratepayers from this ridiculous tax?

Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman has knowledge that I do not have—we do not know what the individual community charges will be; all we know is what we read in the press.
As for capping, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has made the position absolutely clear. Of course, we do not like the tremendous increases in spending that are proposed—we were talking about Clwyd county council a few moments ago. It is proposing to spend about 14 per cent. more in the coming year than it did this year—and this year it spent 9 per cent. more than the previous year.
As for the information that we have given, we have published guides for households and for students about the community charge rebate, and four more leaflets are on the way, all of them in two languages.

Mr. Gwilym Jones: In that information, will my hon. Friend continue to make it clear that those who benefit most from the community charge are the least well off in Wales—despite the attacks mounted on the people of Wales by local councils that set the community charge at unnecessary and ridiculously high levels?

Mr. Roberts: We all know that single pensioners and single parents will certainly benefit from the community charge. There is an excellent rebate scheme, and we have published a guide to the community charge rebate.

Mr. Rowlands: The Minister has admitted that he is ignorant of what is going on in Welsh local authorities. It


is now mid-February; will he tell us whether there is any possibility or probability that the Government intend to rate-cap any Welsh local authority?

Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman knows only too well that we enjoy a particularly favourable position in Wales, in that the average community charge that we anticipated was about £100 less than the average anticipated in England. He also knows that the percentage of grant that the Government give local authorities in Wales is considerably higher than it is in England.

Mr. Barry Jones: Have not the Government underprovided our excellent local authorities in Wales by about 4 per cent? If the Government resort to charge capping, will they not be attacking, in effect, the Conservative-controlled Vale of Glamorgan district council and independent-controlled Montgomery council? If charge capping takes place, the consequences will be cuts in schooling, housing and social services.
The Secretary of State is seeking an alibi. He is passing the buck to our councils, but he is to blame for introducing a poll tax that the people of Wales do not want.

Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman really cannot have it all ways. He is afraid that we want to restrain local authorities from overcharging their community charge payers. He would far rather allow the tremendous increases that we read about in the press to be imposed by local authorities. If he has any care for the electors and community charge payers, he should join the Government in urging local authorities to reduce their spending and their community charge. We all know the truth: local authorities are raising community charges as much as they possibly can and hoping to blame the Government for the outcome.

Local Government Finance

Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his latest information on the level of poll tax to be levied by (a) Carmarthen district council and (b) Dinefwr borough council; and what is the average for all the local authorities so far notified in Wales.

Mr. Peter Walker: I have received no such information.

Mr. Williams: Is the Secretary of State aware that Dyfed has the lowest average male earnings of any county in Britain? What has he to say to the 20,000 or 30,000 people in my constituency who are on low pay, live in very ordinary homes, are not eligible for any rebates and who will lose heavily when the poll tax bills arrive?

Mr. Walker: Expenditure was based on a 7·1 per cent. increase on last year's budget, and only 15 per cent. of all local government expenditure in Wales will come from the poll tax. The hon. Gentleman should explain to his constituents how lucky they are.

Mr. Rogers: I am amazed that the Secretary of State is ignorant about what is happening in local government in Wales. I am sure that he realises that many local authorities, including my own county council of Mid Glamorgan, have already set the level of poll tax. Those councils will now have to struggle for the resources to rebuild and reopen the Rhigos mountain road at the top end of the Rhondda valley, which has collapsed as a result of recent bad weather. Under the previous rating system,

a Welsh Office scheme gave 75 per cent. over and above a penny rate to cope with emergencies. Will the Secretary of State assure me that such money will be immediately forthcoming under the new system to open this vital road, which is the Rhondda's only access to west Wales, the heads of the valley and even into the midlands?

Mr. Walker: That is a separate question and I shall look into the details.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Would my right hon. Friend care to speculate on the howls of outrage that will be uttered by people all over Wales if Labour's proposals for a roof tax are introduced? Under that tax, people would be charged not only on the basis of the capital value of their home, but on the basis of their income. Much unfairness would arise, because after a national Labour Chancellor had fleeced the taxpayers, 400 local chancellors would do the same at the town halls.

Mr. Walker: One notices the total confusion and muddle in the Labour party on this matter. It is certain that if a Labour Government handled a new roof tax in the same rather ruthless way as they handled the rate support system, the people of Wales would have a bad time. When people throughout the Principality discover that they will have to pay a tax based on the capital value of their house, they will be very distressed.

Mr. Barry Jones: I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Conservative Cabinet invented the wretched poll tax. Did not he undertake in Cabinet to impose that unjust tax on the people of Wales? His name was on the poll tax Bill as it was dragooned through the House. These fairy tales from the right hon. Gentleman will lead to electoral disaster for his party. He will be remembered in Wales as the man who brought an unjust tax, the poll tax, upon our people. The poll tax and the right hon. Gentleman's endeavours to promote it are a stain on his ministerial reputation.

Mr. Walker: In fairness to the hon. Gentleman, he has no ministerial reputation. We have introduced one poll tax. The shadow Cabinet of which the hon. Gentleman is a member has had three different types of roof taxes. We all look forward to seeing the detail of the one that he supports so that people throughout Wales can examine it.

Teachers' Pay

Mr. Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what information he has as to the hourly pay of supply teachers and home tutors in (a) West Glamorgan, (b) Gwent and (c) Wales as a whole; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: Local education authorities have considerable flexibility on the pay of supply teachers and home tutors. They are not required to notify the Welsh Office of their local arrangements.

Mr. Butler: Does my hon. Friend accept the recommendations of the interim advisory committee which, if implemented, would eradicate the discrimination against supply teachers in counties in Wales as outside?

Mr. Roberts: I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that we accept the recommendations of the interim advisory committee—including those related to teachers on


short-notice contracts. As a result of those recommendations, the pay of supply and other teachers on such contracts would be calculated on the same basis as that of full-time or regular part-time teachers.

Mr. Gwilym Jones: Is my hon. Friend satisfied with recruitment to teacher training courses in Wales?

Mr. Roberts: On the whole, yes, and I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that initial recruitment to the public sector training institutions in Wales exceeded the target by more than 17 per cent. That augurs well for the future and implies that teaching is still viewed as an attractive career.

Dr. Thomas: The Minister's statement will be very welcome to all part-time or supply teachers. Is he satisfied that sufficient resources are available to Welsh local education authorities to employ the part-time and supply teachers required to ensure that the national curriculum is fully implemented?

Mr. Roberts: A survey of teaching in Wales showed that the vacancy rate is about 1 per cent., which is similar to the rate for England and Wales combined. We are keeping a careful eye on the position and are doing our utmost to ensure an adequate supply of teachers. Other matters, including the employment of part-time and supply teachers, are for local authorities.

Health Authorities

Mr. Win Griffiths: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to meet the chairman of the Welsh health authorities; and what matters will be discussed.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ian Grist): The date and agenda for the next meeting have not yet been determined.

Mr. Griffiths: The Minister is aware of my concern that Dr. Joan Williams and Mr. David Else, who are employees of Mid Glamorgan health authority and shareholders and company directors of Medical Diagnostics Limited, and Dr. Stephanie Matthews and Dr. Keith Davies, who are employees of South Glamorgan health authority and shareholders and directors of Lifecare Advanced Medical Limited, have serious direct conflicts of interest between the income-generating work in the Health Service and their involvement in private companies. Will the Minister issue guidelines for the chairmen of Welsh health authorities making it clear that such activities fall well beyond the scope of acceptable private practice and will not be allowed in future?

Mr. Grist: Health authorities, as employers, are responsible for ensuring that their employees' private interests do not conflict with those of the authorities. We are considering whether further guidance is needed to guard against the risk of conflict.

Mr. Geraint Howells: Will the Minister meet representatives of local authorities in mid-Wales, as many of them are keen to establish a Mid Wales health authority based on Bronglais hospital, Aberystwyth?

Mr. Grist: I know of the hon. Gentleman's concern for his local hospital, but I believe that he has been taken in by people who have raised unnecessary scares about it. East Dyfed health authority does a first-rate job.

Community Care

Mr. Michael: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what estimate he has made of the cost to local authorities in Wales of implementing the community care proposals contained in the recent White Paper on community care.

Mr. Grist: As we have made clear in the White Paper "Caring for People", the resources to be made available to local authorities in Wales to implement the new framework for community care will be determined in this year's public expenditure survey, following consultations with the local authorities which have begun.

Mr. Michael: The Minister did not answer my question. Does he accept that in coming years, the increasing number of elderly people will require extra resources? Does he further agree that care in the community will cost money and must not be implemented on the cheap? Will he guarantee that the Government will make available enough money to enable local authorities in Wales to bear the burden that is being transferred to them by the National Health Service and Community Care Bill which is currently in Committee? Will he also ensure that such finance is ring-fenced, so that there will be no doubt about the resources available to look after our old people?

Mr. Grist: As the hon. Gentleman is, with me, a member of the Standing Committee, he must be aware that the Government have every intention of ensuring that their policy works to the benefit of the old and dependent in society. We do not believe that resources should be ring-fenced because we put our trust in local authorities. Of course, we shall take into consideration any action that might have to be taken in the future, but at this stage we have faith in local authorities.

Mr. John P. Smith: Will the Minister take this opportunity to comment on the shortfall in respite care allowances? My constituents are unable to take advantage of hostels for the mentally and physically handicapped because the abolition of the board and lodging allowance has penalised dependants. People do not receive the same amount of benefit if, to have a break, they put their dependants into respite hospitals.

Mr. Grist: The hon. Gentleman will know that this is a subject for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security rather than for me. He will be aware of the increased funding by the Welsh Office for the mentally handicapped and the mental illness strategies.

A55

Sir Anthony Meyer: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what response has been received to the publication of "The A55—The Road of Opportunity"; and what further sections of the road will begin to be improved in the next financial year.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: The response to the publication of the document "The A55—The Road of Opportunity" has been very favourable. We will be announcing details of major trunk road schemes planned to start in 1990–91 in the Welsh Office commentary on the 1990 public expenditure White Paper due to be published in March.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that everyone concerned—the private developers and Clwyd county council—is taking full advantage of the glittering opportunities presented by the Government's tremendous success in driving ahead with that new road? Will he make a statement about when work is likely to begin on the badly needed Rhuallt hill improvement?

Mr. Roberts: On my hon. Friend's second question, tenders for the scheme were invited on 19 January and are due for return at the end of March, and construction is expected to take about two years. We shall get going with the scheme as soon as possible.
On the earlier part of my hon. Friend's question, I believe that the actions of the local authorities in connection with the enormous Government investment in the new road, and the proposals that are coming forward, are to be welcomed.

South Glamorgan Health Authority

Mr. Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he next expects to meet the chairman of South Glamorgan health authority to discuss health services.

Mr. Grist: My right hon. Friend has no immediate plans to meet the chairman of South Glamorgan health authority.

Mr. Morgan: Does the Minister agree that such a meeting is urgently required? At a meeting on Wednesday this week, South Glamorgan health authority will consider an emergency proposal to close six hospitals. Three of them are in my constituency—St. David's and Glan Ely hospitals and Ely ear nose and throat hospital. The shortfall for next year's budget is £7·5 million, and as a result the authority is reduced to planning in a panic, and having to sell capital resources to fund a revenue shortfall. I should have thought that the Minister would regard that with the utmost seriousness.

Mr. Grist: The hon. Gentleman will know that those proposals are the responsibility of the health authority. As they may eventually come before my right hon. Friend for a decision, it is impossible for me to talk about them. He will also know that the health authority that he and I share is the best resourced in Wales. In the forthcoming year its capital allocation will be increased by 122 per cent. which I think the hon. Gentleman will agree is fairly generous.

Dr. Marek: How much extra will it cost the authority when it has to pay for its patients to be treated in England, and how much extra will it cost when the authority has to pay value added tax?

Mr. Grist: The health authorities will be funded for value added tax and for contracts taken out elsewhere.
The hon. Gentleman must understand that South Glamorgan health authority is as likely to attract inward patients as anywhere else, as it is a regional centre and a highly regarded university hospital-based authority.

Polychlorinated Biphenyls

Mr. Denzil Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects to receive the results of the recent tests carried out under the auspices of his Department into the level of polychlorinated biphenyls in Llanelli.

Mr. Grist: Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution has taken two further samples, one from the playing field and one nearby, to validate the results of its original survey. The results of the samples will be available towards the end of March.

Mr. Davies: Is the Minister aware that there is considerable concern in my constituency that this matter should be dealt with urgently? We know that one sample provided earlier showed high levels of PCBs in the field adjacent to an infants' school. So that pollution may be removed, will the Government, and the Welsh Office in particular, view sympathetically requests for financial help from the local authorities which are under considerable strain in this matter?

Mr. Grist: Unless the right hon. Gentleman can produce proof of that strain, the work to which he referred will fall within the local authorities' ordinary duties. We want the results of the tests to be available as quickly as possible. Apparently a problem arises because the samples have to be dried before they can be examined; it is more a scientific problem than anything else.

Rural Housing

Mr. Livsey: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the provision of affordable housing in rural Wales.

Mr. Grist: We are taking a wide range of measures to stimulate the provision of additional affordable housing in rural Wales, including substantial spending by housing associations and consultations about planning guidance on the provision of land for low-cost housing.

Mr. Livsey: Is the Minister really aware of the housing crisis in rural Wales? Many youngsters are having to sleep outside and even in cars, and it is estimated that there are 100 such youngsters in Newtown. Does the Minister agree that the Welsh Office should change its planning rules so that rented housing and starter homes can remain in the local housing market for local people?

Mr. Grist: That is precisely why Housing in Wales has launched its rural initiative, with 31 on-site schemes in preparation at the moment. The hon. Gentleman will know that we have out for consultation proposals that would make the planning laws a little more amenable to the sort of proposals that he suggests.

Oral Answers to Questions — ATTORNEY-GENERAL

Director of Public Prosecutions

Mr. Allen: To ask the Attorney-General when he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions; and what matters were discussed.

Mr. Skinner: To ask the Attorney-General when he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions; and what matters were discussed.

The Attorney-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): I frequently discuss matters of departmental interest with the Director of Public Prosecutions, and I last met him for that purpose on 14 February.

Mr. Allen: Is the Attorney-General aware of the reports of the remarks of Sir Peter Leng, Army land commander in Northern Ireland from 1973 to 1975, to the effect that he was aware of the dirty tricks being performed by MI6 in Northern Ireland and the smearing of hon. Members of all parties? Is he aware that Sir Frank King, General Officer Commanding, said that he has "no quarrel" with Sir Peter's remarks? Will the Attorney-General now ask the DPP to consider whether criminal offences took place and to bring charges against those who deliberately sought to undermine democratically elected people in the House and elsewhere?

The Attorney-General: Although the question relates to the DPP and the supplementary question to Northern Ireland, I can say to the hon. Gentleman that, as with all assertions of criminal conduct—I have read a report in the newspaper today—any relevant information that is brought to the attention of the police or the prosecuting authorities will be duly considered.

Mr. Skinner: Has the Attorney-General seen the report published by the district auditor on the sale of cemeteries by Westminster council for 15p? Has he noted that the auditor said that the sale was unauthorised, unlawful and detrimental to ratepayers? When will the members of Tory-controlled Westminster city council be called to account? Why has the ball been kicked from one end of the field to the other for years without anyone being charged? Is it because Lady Porter is a friend of the Prime Minister and a member of the Tory party? Finally, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that if a Labour authority had done this, it would have been hung, drawn and quartered?

The Attorney-General: I am responsible for the enforcement of the criminal law in England and Wales, where hanging, drawing and quartering went out some time ago. I have not seen the auditor's report to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but, if there is a question of liability, it sounds like a civil matter, not a criminal one.

Mr. Latham: In view of the verdict of unlawful killing at the inquest on my former constituent, Petty Officer John Black, and the decision to seek a fresh inquest, can my right hon. and learned Friend say today, or discuss with the DPP, when a fresh inquest will take place? The man in question died in December 1983.

The Attorney-General: Again, the question does not arise as part of the responsibilities of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but I can help my hon. Friend by saying that, unless I am badly mistaken, the application for a fresh inquest will be heard soon in the Divisional court, where it is already listed.

Mr. Aitken: When assertions are made of attempts to overthrow a democratic Government by unlawful means, on what criteria does the Director of Public Prosecutions go into overdrive and put the accelerator down and when does he put on the handbrake? For example, does my right hon. and learned Friend recall that when similar allegations were made—admittedly from a different angle—by Mr. Peter Wright, the entire Law Officers' Department rushed round the world spending £3 million of taxpayers' money on hyper-legal activity? Why is no action taken when those assertions are made from a different angle?

The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend does not do justice to his recollection of the "Spycatcher" case. The litigation, here and overseas, ended in the House of Lords in complete vindication of the Government's contentions. The action was undertaken to enforce the Government's right to lifelong confidentiality from those who have been members of the security services, and that contention was wholly upheld by the House of Lords. It had nothing to do with the Director of Public Prosecutions. When he is confronted with evidence that a criminal offence has been committed, there is neither accelerator nor handbrake but one measured pace.

Mr. Fraser: Will the Attorney-General confirm that forgery with a view to disseminating defamatory information is a criminal offence and that no one in this country has the power to authorise the commission of crimes? Will he give an undertaking not to leave this serious matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but to report these exchanges to the DPP and then report back to the House of Commons on whether the DPI' will investigate it?

The Attorney-General: No, Sir. It would be wrong to answer the hypothetical questions with which the hon. Gentleman prefaced his question. It is unnecessary to depart from the well-tried and well-proven practice whereby matters suggesting that criminal offences may have been committed are considered first by the police and then by the prosecuting authorities.

Extradition

Mr. Gow: To ask the Attorney-General whether he has any proposals to change the present law and practice relating to extradition between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

The Attorney-General: I understand that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, who is responsible for United Kingdom law in this area, has no proposals for change. As to practice, we shall continue to seek the extradition of offenders from the Republic of Ireland whenever an appropriate case arises.

Mr. Gow: Is not it the duty of the Government of the Irish Republic, with or without the Anglo-Irish Agreement, to do all in their power to ensure that those who are suspected of criminal offences, notably terrorist offences, are brought to justice? Is my right hon. and learned Friend continuing to make representations to secure the extradition to this country of Mr. Ryan?

The Attorney-General: I believe that the Irish Government would accept the duty that my hon. Friend formulates. Mr. Ryan's case must be regarded as concluded in view of the decision of the Irish Director of Public Prosecutions, who is an independent official, as is the Director of Public Prosecutions in this country. I have the highest regard for the Attorney-General in Dublin. Mr. Murray. Each country has its own statute law with which it has to comply. Each country has independent judges and independent Directors of Public Prosecutions. Each of us desires that those who should be charged with serious criminal offences are brought to justice.

Legal Aid

Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Attorney-General what is the best estimate available to Law Officers of the cost per annum, at 1990 prices, of extending legal aid, on similar criteria to those applicable elsewhere in the legal system, to those representing the interests of the deceased at inquests.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): The latest estimate of the annual cost of extending full legal aid to representation at inquests was made in 1980. At 1990 prices the sum involved is £5·96 million. Advice and assistance under the green form scheme is currently available for such proceedings.

Mr. Hughes: I am grateful to the Solicitor-General for that answer. Will he undertake to review the cost and the decision that it would not be justified to extend legal aid? He will be aware that verdicts at inquests vary between those producing a liability and open verdicts and that those verdicts may determine whether other prosecutions take place. Legal aid is important. Will there be a review of the right to legal aid at inquests?

The Solicitor-General: Matters must be considered as a question of priority, and competing claims are continually examined. The latest claim to be granted by the Lord Chancellor, at a net cost of about £5 million—roughly the same figure as I mentioned earlier—provided assistance to about 5 million child potential claimants and 1·5 million elderly potential claimants in personal injury cases. The matter must be judged against such priorities.

Director of Public Prosecutions

Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Attorney-General when he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions; and what was discussed.

The Attorney-General: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I have just given to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen).

Mr. Dalyell: Following his undertaking to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), will the Attorney-General reflect on the penultimate paragraph of the letter from Colin Wallace to the Prime Minister of 19 February asking how it came about that the director of Army legal services, Major-General Whiteley, became involved in preparing a summary for the Appeal Court? Will he find out from colleagues such as Sue Marsh how that happened?

The Attorney-General: I have many responsibilities, but they do not extend to the hon. Gentleman's question. There is nothing that I can usefully add to what I said to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North.

Civil Justice Review

Mr. Favell: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on recent representations received on his plan to speed up the judicial process.

The Solicitor-General: Implementation of the main recommendations in the report of the civil justice review is

being taken forward in the Courts and Legal Services Bill and in a programme of associated changes to the rules of court and administrative reforms.

Mr. Favell: As a fellow lawyer, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that a lawyer's time is money, that the system often leads to far too long being spent on court procedures, and that the speeding up of that process would be most welcome?

The Solicitor-General: I agree with my hon. Friend. One of the proposed administrative reforms will require litigants to put their cards on the table at a much earlier stage in a case. That should speed up the administration of justice and facilitate a reduction in costs.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Eastern Europe

Mr. Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has had expressing concern in the Third world that aid to eastern Europe will adversely affect the amount of aid available to it; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Alan Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy that total Overseas Development Administration expenditure for 1990–91 will be increased so that aid funds for eastern Europe do not reduce the amount available for developing countries.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): The Government are aware of concerns, here and overseas, that economic assistance to eastern Europe might adversely affect the amount of aid going to developing countries. I assure the House that the provision of United Kingdom assistance to eastern Europe is separate from and additional to our regular aid programme. which is growing in real terms. OECD member Governments affirmed in December that their support for economic reform in central and eastern Europe will not diminish their determination to give high priority to their development co-operation with the Third world.

Mr. Murphy: Does the Minister accept that there is widespread concern among aid agencies in Britain that relief to eastern Europe is at the expense of relief to the Third world? Will she give a further assurance that over the next few years at least the poorest of the Third world will not be asked to subsidise the poor of eastern Europe?

Mrs. Chalker: I have repeated many times that aid to eastern Europe is additional to and separate from aid to the developing world. That is exactly what we have decided and that is exactly what we have done.

Mr. Williams: I very much welcome that assurance. In view of the highly volatile and rapidly changing position in eastern Europe, may we have an assurance that the Minister and the Government will be flexible in interpreting the need for assistance to eastern Europe and will be willing, if necessary, to draw upon the contingency fund?

Mrs. Chalker: If that occurs, of course the Government will consider what is needed. However, we have been


flexible and provided $100 million to the Polish stabilisation fund which was not envisaged when we began talking about the know-how fund. When we saw the need for humanitarian assistance in Romania before Christmas, we immediately dispatched 1·8 tonnes of medical supplies. Last week my hon. Friend the Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced that we would be providing disposable syringes for Romania. We have also arranged for five injured young people from Romania to be treated here and we are considering at the moment another way of helping Romania. None of those things was even considered when we started down the path of the know-how funds of £50 million for Poland and £25 million for Hungary. We are being flexible and we shall continue to do so.

Mr. Nelson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the momentous changes in eastern Europe provide some spectacular opportunities for private investment rather than more taxpayers' aid? Should not we differentiate between the much-needed infrastructural and basic support aid that we provide to the poorest countries and the probably greater case for more technology transfers and trade credits to eastern Europe?

Mrs. Chalker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the 29 projects that were announced for Poland in December and the six further projects that we announced last month, it is interesting to see how much private organisations are adding to the incentive that the Government provided for the know-how funds. There will be joint ventures and many contributions from the private sector because the eastern European countries have a greater ability to attract private capital than some of the really underdeveloped countries.

Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of us have a genuine and deep-seated feeling for the Third world? However, only a limited amount of money is available, and with Germany wanting to go headlong towards creating another surrogate state of East Germany, the amount of money required may stretch into billions of pounds. Whatever the world may want, Germany is likely to benefit. Who is going to pay for it? If anyone is to pay, why should it not be Germany? Why should not we help the Third world instead of helping the fourth reich?

Mrs. Chalker: My hon. Friend takes his claim a little too far. We have spent more than £3,500 million in Africa over the past eight years and we shall continue to help the developing world. However, the Federal Republic of Germany has also been helping the developing world and it is helping eastern Europe greatly. We will do our bit, and I have no doubt that all Members of the European Community will continue to help adequately in the Third world and look to the need for democracies to be encouraged in eastern Europe.

Africa

Mr. Bowis: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what further measures he is taking to improve child health care in Africa.

Mrs. Chalker: Almost everything that we finance in Africa, bilaterally and through multilateral organisations,

benefits children by encouraging sustainable economic and social development. Our health sector aid concentrates on preventive communuity-based systems in which mother and child health programmes have a central place. Child health also benefits from our support for family planning, provision of clean water and sanitation, education, especially women's education, and progammes to improve the status of women.

Mr. Bowis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that her response is a welcome statement of the Government's programme? Does she further agree that with a more effective oral rehydration therapy programme we could save more children's lives than the total number of lives that were lost in the first and second world wars? Will my right hon. Friend also consider the fact that half the world's children are currently not protected by the diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus programme of immunisation? Will she lead a children's crusade to improve the health of the world's children?

Mrs. Chalker: We are already helping with immunisation through our contributions to UNICEF's major programme. With regard to oral rehydration therapy, we have been a major contributor to the World Health Organisation's diarrhoeal disease control programme which is responsible for promoting the use of ORT.

Mrs. Clwyd: As the Minister knows, I have just returned from Ethiopia. Does she agree that in that country children are suffering most because of famine and war? Does she agree that the Foreign Ministers meeting in Dublin tomorrow should be asked to bring every effort to bear on the protagonists to end that bloody and increasingly vicious civil war and to bring the warring factions round the negotiating table?

Mr. Chalker: I am glad to see the hon. Lady back safe and sound from Ethiopia. I have already asked my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary whether he will consider raising in the Foreign Affairs Council in Dublin tomorrow the urgent need for a peace settlement in Ethiopia. Of course, the children suffer—probably rather more than the hon. Lady and I know. I hope that we shall use all international forums to bring about peace swiftly.

Tibet

Mr. Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what environmental protection measures Her Majesty's Government propose to take in respect of Tibet.

Mrs. Chalker: The Government have no plans at present to finance environmental protection measures in Tibet.

Mr. Bruce: Will the Minister acknowledge the concern caused by the Chinese Government's attitude to Tibet, in terms of forcing changes to unsuitable crops, which has led to starvation, the stripping of rain forests and the area being used as an environmental dump? In those circumstances is not it appropriate that the British Government should apply some pressure to the Chinese Government to stop those practices and protect the interests of the native population of Tibet?

Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman knows that the environment throughout the world is central to our


agenda. I fully acknowledge that developing countries will need additional resources to tackle problems, whether they be crop substitution or deforestation. As yet, we have had no request to help with environmental problems in Tibet. I sincerely hope that it will become possible, throughout that area, to take all such measures internationally as will prevent deforestation and the flow into the gulf of Bangladesh, which I have just visited, of much of the soils from those high regions.

Mr. Cormack: Does my right hon. Friend agree that China's record in Tibet is disgraceful by any standards?

Mrs. Chalker: Successive British Governments have regarded Tibet as autonomous, although recognising the special position of the Chinese authorities. That continues to be the Government's view, but we sincerely hope that China will give the people of Tibet their rightful stance.

Operation Clockwork Orange

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the statement of a genuinely distinguished soldier, General Sir Peter Leng, Scots Guards, a senior commander in Aden, subsequently Master-General of the Ordnance and a member of the Army Council, but, most relevantly, Commander of Land Forces in Northern Ireland for the years 1973–75 that, contrary to Government claims, the operation Clockwork Orange had official sanction to run.
I must persuade you, Mr. Speaker, that the matter is definite, that it is urgent and that it is important. The matter is definite, and it is fully reported in the first editions of yesterday's Sunday Times, under the by-line Barry Penrose and the heading "General Backs Wallace Claims". The four page 1 and page 2 articles were "pulled out," to use the trade term, for reasons that are revealing but not relevant to the application for the matter to take precedence over the announced business of the House of Commons.
The matter is important, because accuracy by Ministers to the House is important. You did me the courtesy Mr. Speaker, of being in the Chair for the Adjournment debate last Monday night, attended by about 70 Opposition Members and 30 Conservative Members. You will have heard, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces say, as reported at column 118 of Hansard, that operation Clockwork Orange was not approved.
At least the Select Committee on Defence might consider asking Sir Peter Leng to appear before it to clarify

exactly what he meant. The Minister and the general cannot both be right. Who is the House of Commons to believe?

Mr. Tony Banks: The general.

Mr. Dalyell: That would be my view—[Interruption]. Well, the general has no axe to grind.
The matter is urgent, because it emerges that Clockwork Orange was masterminded by a senior civil servant, Dennis Payne, and that the General Officer Commanding, Northern Ireland, at the time, General Sir Frank King, has said that he has no quarrel with General Sir Peter Leng's account.
Nothing is more urgent than matters that go to the heart of the integrity of British Government. Nothing that this House of Commons has to consider is more urgent than the matter of integrity in the highest places.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
General Sir Peter Leng's statement on Colin Wallace.
As the House knows, under Standing Order No. 20, I have to announce my decision without giving reasons to the House. I have listened with care to what the hon. Gentleman has said. As he knows, I have to decide whether his application comes within the criteria of the Standing Order, and if so, whether the debate should have priority over the business already set down for today or tomorrow.
In this case, I regret that the matter that he has raised does not meet the requirements of the Standing Order and I therefore cannot submit his application to the House.

Points of Order

Mr. Merlyn Rees: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: On this matter?

Mr. Rees: The point of order, Mr. Speaker, is on the role of Select Committees, arising out of this matter. We have had a rehearsal by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) of the facts as revealed in a newspaper, in an article that was withdrawn at the request of the Ministry of Defence—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I understand.
On the precise point about the Select Committee, Mr. Speaker, first, the Government denied that Clockwork Orange existed; then, they said that it was not authorised. Now, General Leng, whom I also respect and with whom I worked, and the General Officer Commanding, Northern Ireland, Frank King, both say that it was authorised, which is another part of the story.
On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, the Select Committee on Defence is considering the matters of papers and of authorisations. Can General Leng, as a former senior officer in the Army, be called before a Select Committee to give evidence on that point? Can the Government stop him so appearing? If he wishes, can he appear before the Select Committee on this point?

Mr. Speaker: It is not for me to give directions to a Select Committee from the Chair. As I understand it, it would be possible for that to happen.

Dr. John Cunningham: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not astonishing and unsatisfactory that, at the very time when the former President of the United States of America is being required to give evidence in respect of the examination by Congress of Admiral Poindexter on all those matters, it is proving impossible in the British House of Commons for the legislature to exert any effective scrutiny over these matters? It is grossly unsatisfactory that the activities of the Select Committees of this House are being circumscribed by Ministers in this regard.
In view of the latest statement by the highest-ranking officers in the armed forces that these matters of disinformation and smear were properly authorised, surely there is now an overwhelming argument for the House to have a proper examination of all the material interests in these matters.
It seems that only with some co-operation from the Leader of the House and the Government are we ever likely to get to the bottom and to the truth of these matters. Therefore, I appeal to the Leader of the House to join me in discussions through the usual channels to find a way in which we in the House and the public can find the truth of the matter.

Mr. Speaker: I am sure that that was heard on the Government Front Bench. It is not a matter for me.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Barry Jones.

Mr. Allan Rogers: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have called Mr. Barry Jones.

Mr. Barry Jone: On a point of order arising out of Welsh questions, Mr. Speaker. It may have been obvious to you, Sir, that, of the first 10 oral questions tabled, five were tabled by Conservative Members with English constituencies. From where I was sitting, the only Conservative Back Bench Members with Welsh constituencies whom I could see were the hon. Members for Pembroke (Mr Bennett) for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) and for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones).
I seek your assistance and guidance, Sir. I and my right hon. and hon. Friends believe that the questions tabled by English Members make it difficult for us to catch your eye in the limited time for Welsh questions. That may be a ploy to prevent us from catching your eye and perhaps to give assistance to Conservative Back Benchers, whose numbers are small. Can you help us on that matter?

Mr. Speaker: I think that I can help the right hon. Member. If a question on the Order Paper is reached, the hon. Member who tabled it will be called, from whatever constituency he comes. I think that we did rather well in Welsh questions today. We reached question 17 and only three hon. Members who had questions on the Order Paper were not called for a supplementary question. The hon. Gentleman's complaint does not hold water today.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: On a different point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will be aware that many millions of people, particularly those who live in constituencies near the Kent coast, are anxious, for one reason or another, about the future of the Channel tunnel. I understand that Ministers have resisted demands for a statement—they have made that resistance known for private notice questions too—on the grounds that there is no ministerial responsibility for the matter. It is important that no one is allowed to pull the wool over your eyes, Sir, as you are the guardian of Back Benchers and their constituents. I wish to bring to your attention two points which suggest that there is ministerial responsibility for the matter, and that a Government statement should be made.

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member feels that strongly, he should table a question on the matter. If he is right, and there is Government responsibility, I am sure that he will receive an answer.

Several Hon. Members: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet. We have just had Welsh questions. We are about to have an Opposition day debate on a motion tabled by the Scottish Nationalist party.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Alan Williams: On a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Many hon. Members, some of whom are now on their feet, wish to participate in that debate. We should get on with it, rather than have points of order which I cannot answer.

Mr. Rogers: Further to the point of order raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), Mr. Speaker. You answered his


question by saying that it might well be so. The original question was whether the Government had a right to prevent General Leng from appearing before the Select Committee. Can we understand from your answer that the Government have that right and have exercised it?

Mr. Speaker: I did not say that. It is a matter for the Select Committee.

Mr. Alan Williams: I want to return to the first point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have always regarded it as one of the most important elements of your responsibility to protect the rights of the House of Commons. I know that you regard it as a matter of seriousness when the House has been misled, even if inadvertently. We now have a rather unprecedented situation, in which we need your guidance to protect those rights.
The Prime Minister, as head of the Civil Service, is saying that she was misled by the Civil Service, and therefore inadvertently misled the House. The Prime Minister, as head of the security services, is saying that she was misled by them, and therefore inadvertently misled the House. Now the head of the armed services is saying that he was misled by them, and that he therefore misled the House. This is more than just one ordinary accident. We need at least a statement. Can you, Mr. Speaker, advise us how we can get one?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has made the point for himself. In answering a Standing Order No. 20 application, I am responsible only for the difficult decision whether to give it precedence over the business for today or tomorrow.

Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas: Further to the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), Mr. Speaker. Over the years, it has been a convention for Welsh Members to participate in Welsh questions, during which we may discuss matters devolved to the Welsh Office. If it is to be the practice that English Members are to come to the defence of the Secretary of State for Wales, clearly there is less time for Opposition Members to question the Minister and we shall have to press for more time to be made available for Welsh questions.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Michael Jack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Is it on the same matter?

Mr. Jack: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Bennett: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Speaker: Very well. Let us hear Mr. Bennett first.

Mr. Bennett: Further to the point of order of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Dr. Thomas), Mr. Speaker. Can we rest assured that this is a United Kingdom Parliament and that any hon. Member may take part in any part of our discussions? If the Labour party is so concerned about the matter, why are its three spokesmen on English health matters all Scottish Members of Parliament?

Mr. Jack: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I resent the imputation that English Members tabling questions on Welsh matters is a barrier to Welsh members entering the discussion. There is always the opportunity of a supplementary question. Hon. Gentlemen have ignored the fact that many of the matters, particularly those relating to north Wales, also relate to the north-west of England.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that I can say any more than I have said. Hon. Members need only look at the Order Paper today to see that virtually all hon. Members who were present in the Chamber—

Mr. Roy Hughes: indicated dissent—

Mr. Speaker: —including the hon. Gentleman who is. shaking his head—were called to ask questions.

Mr. Richard Livsey: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet. This is a United Kingdom Parliament, and today we have a debate in the name of the Scottish Nationalist party. We should get on with it.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Ordered,
That the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 1990 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. John Mark Taylor.]

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

Ordered,
That European Community Documents Nos. 9762/89 and 9865/89 on preferences for Poland and Hungary be referred to a Standing Committee on European Community Documents.—[Mr. John Mark Taylor.]

Opposition Day

[8TH ALLOTTED DAY] [IST PART]

Ambulance Dispute

Mr. Speaker: We now come to the debate on the dispute in the ambulance service in the name of the Scottish Nationalist party. I must announce to the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Jim Sillars: Before I start, I want to make one technical correction. We are not the Scottish Nationalist party but the Scottish National party, and there is more than just a semantic difference.

Mr. Speaker: I apologise.

Mr. Sillars: I was not looking for an apology.
I beg to move,
That this House recognises public concern about the prolongation of the ambulance dispute; acknowledges strong public support for the ambulance staff; is aware of the Government's role in prolonging the dispute; and calls upon the Secretary of State for Health to renew negotiations with representatives of ambulance staff in order to seek an end to the dispute on the basis of a just award and a pay review mechanism that will recognise the place of ambulance staff in our emergency services.
The motion is tabled in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing), myself and others in the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru. I acknowledge and recognise the co-operation of the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) on behalf of the Labour party in ensuring that a single motion has been tabled by the Opposition today. Whatever political differences we may have in other areas, there are absolutely none in respect of this dispute.
I notice that the name of the organ grinder, the Secretary of State for Health, is missing from the Government amendment. It also appears that he is missing from this debate. I am sure that many members of the public, as well as ambulance staff, will think it an absolute disgrace that the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not reckon that this subject is important enough to present himself to the House to state his case.

Mr. Bill Walker: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Sillars: I shall not give way, even for a kiltie.
I shall refer to the Secretary of State for Health all afternoon because, with due respect to the other hon. Gentlemen, the organ grinder is far more important than the monkeys.
On page 2 of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's letter of 16 February, which was sent to hon. Members, he refers to the trade unions and says:
They are still claiming 11·4 per cent. and are still insisting on a pay mechanism for ambulancemen"—
I do not know why he fails to understand that women are also involved—
which would link them to firemen or other staff".

That statement from the Secretary of State was untrue. The position of the trade unions was made perfectly plain in a statement issued on 16 January. Paragraph 2 of that statement reads:
The pay rate aspect of our claim is the other major demand. In April 1989 our claim was 11·14 per cent. on the hourly rate. However, the unions are prepared to negotiate on this and, if necessary, lower our sights.
Paragraph 4 states:
In November 1989, to facilitate negotiations, the ambulance unions dropped several key parts of the April 1989 claim.
The parts of the claim dropped were:

1. An increase in standby allowances
2. An increase in annual leave
3. The introduction of long service holidays
4. A reduction in the working week
5. The introduction of long service pay, after 5, 10 and 15 years' service."


Any of those five objectives is perfectly legitimate for a trade union involved in negotiations—the 11·14 per cent. pay claim is perfectly legitimate. It says a great deal for the flexibility of the trade unions that they were prepared to make that type of offer to the Government. They were prepared to lower their sights on a major part of their claim and to drop a series of important aspects of it. The Secretary of State's letter, which was sent to all hon. Members, is wholly inaccurate. Perhaps that is why he finds it extremely difficult to come here this afternoon to try to justify his unjustifiable position.
We have two reasons for tabling the motion. First, the ambulance staff have been in dispute for six months, and it is extremely important that the people that they elected, along with other concerned members of the public, appreciate that and do not forget those staff. In the past five weeks, momentous events have taken place in the Soviet Union, East Germany, other parts of eastern Europe and in South Africa with the freeing of Nelson Mandela. Various things have happened that have tended to push the ambulance dispute off the front pages and out of the media.
I have been involved in industrial disputes, and I appreciate that people can believe that they have been forgotten. As a result of this debate, an important signal will be sent to the ambulance staff and to the public to say that the dispute is at the top of the parliamentary agenda and of the public agenda. From my experience as a trade union official, I stress to ambulance staff that the combination of public support for them and their commitment to the public is unbeatable. If they maintain their commitment to the public, they will achieve their objectives as redefined by the trade unions.
The second reason for the motion is to produce a further critical examination of the issues, particularly against the changed political circumstances of the electoral prospects of the Tory party. That should make many Opposition Members consider their future carefully.
I have looked at all that has been said in the debates, and there seem to be six main pillars supporting the Government's case. I shall examine them in turn. First, the Government say that it is wrong for management to engage in arbitration, and therefore that solution is rejected. Secondly, they say that no more money is available because each penny spent comes off patient care funds. The third pillar is combined with the fourth: the Government reject a pay review mechanism, similar in its objectives to that applied to the fire service, to avoid further disputes. The Government justify that through


their assertion that no true comparison can be drawn between the ambulance service and the police and fire service.
The fifth pillar of the Government's case is that it is immoral to take industrial action in an essential service. The sixth pillar is that the organ grinder—the Secretary of State—claims that he has no personal responsibility for direct intervention.

Mr. Tony Banks: Does not the hon. Gentleman contrast the statements that the Secretary of State actually makes with the number of times that he goes on radio and television to argue the case, while trying to be Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate and wash his hands of the affair?

Mr. Sillars: Judas Iscariot at least got something. I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says, and I shall refer to the television stardom role that has been adopted by the Secretary of State.
The first pillar in the Government's case is arbitration. The Secretary of State's position is set out in Hansard, on 24 October last year. He said:
Management cannot hand over the control of pay of large groups of people to third parties when it also has a responsibility to spend its money on the provision of patient service."—[Official Report, 24 October 1989; Vol. 158, c. 666.]
I hope that everyone grasped the phrase.
cannot hand over the control … of large groups".
The ambulance men and women number about 22,000 out of 1 million people in the National Health Service—just over 2 per cent. of the total staff involved. They could not be defined, even by an idiot, as a very large group.
There are large groups, including the 100,000 doctors and the 490,000 nurses. Those are, by any definiton, very large groups. Their pay is not worked out by arbitration, but it is something near it, because there are pay review mechanisms that remove any possibility of industrial dispute.
I say to the Secretary of State, who is not here, that the job of management is to consider all the elements that make up an organisation's activity. They must consider its revenue, materials, equipment, fixed capital formation in hospitals, human capital and, last but by no means least, staff motivation, commitment and morale. Those are the elements that go to make a challenge to management.
There is now a distinct failure of management. For six months, they have failed to resolve a dispute that could easily be resolved by recourse to arbitration. To listen to the Secretary of State, one would think that arbitration was a completely new invention that had never been tried before and might lead to chaos and disaster.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman may care to reflect on the Secretary of State's previous role as an Under-Secretary of State for Transport. Every time the railway unions sought an increase, he constantly said, "Go to the Railway Staff National Tribunal"—the arbitration organisation.

Mr. Sillars: Yes, that is the point I am making: there is nothing new about arbitration. It is a well-tried system employed to break down conflict and disputes or to resolve a dispute when that would be extremely difficult under normal circumstances.

Dame Jill Knight: I am following carefully what the hon. Gentleman is saying.

Can he give some examples of arbitration used anywhere else in the Health Service instead of the Whitley council arrangements?

Mr. Sillars: I have heard and read this argument before, and it is not relevant. Once upon a time, in every industry and undertaking, there must have been a first time when arbitration was invoked—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is a logical proposition that no one could confound.
I have personal experience of arbitration; I have served as a member of an arbitration panel which tried to solve a dispute between teachers and management in local government in the mid-1970s. Arbitration is not the handing over of management control to the arbiters. Arbitration does not take place in a vacuum. No one ignores the realities facing the management and the trade unions.
An arbitration panel is a tripartite body. The chairman is neutral; there is a nominee from the employers' side and another from the trade union side. They assess the award against the realities.
I was the trade union nominee on an arbitration panel, and it sat in private. No one on it could get away with loose intellectual or economic arguments, or with stupid social arguments, no matter which side he represented. There was genuine concern on the part of the whole tribunal, and that applied to every arbitration that I have ever experienced—

Mr. Bill Walker: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Sillars: No.
These panels tried to reach certain objectives. One was to resolve the dispute fairly; the second was to leave the structure of management-trade union relations intact; the third was to injure neither party. Arbitration is a civilised way of resolving disputes. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) was right: it is ironic that the Government urge arbitration on a group of workers whose claim they do not like, but deny arbitration to another group whose claims they like in no circumstances—

Mr. Walker: rose—

Mr. Sillars: I shall not give way. I do not want to upset the hon. Gentleman; he will get in later, but he has to wait his turn.
The Select Committee examined arbitration. As I said before, somewhere along the line there must be a first time for arbitration. In the debate on 11 January this year, the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) said:
Last March, the Select Committee recommended that `the Government take the initiative in getting discussions started between the Management and Staff sides with the purpose of developing a mutually agreed arbitration procedure. We suggest that arbitration should be a last resort and that a strict timetable should be established and adhered to for issues referred to arbitration'."—[Official Report, 11 January 1990; Vol. 164, c. 1133.]
The Select Committee foresaw difficulties of this kind, and put the idea forward. What a pity it was not accepted.

Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman has some knowledge of arbitration, but he is not the only Member with knowledge of it. These are complex and intricate matters. Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House from experience how Whitley works, and what impact arbitration for one group of workers would have on the standing of Whitley and on the Health Service?

Mr. Sillars: One of the great problems of Whitley was beautifully summed up by Lord McCarthy, who said that it was made up of
employers who do not pay and paymasters who do not employ.
I look forward to the day when I can stand here and claim to have piloted Concorde; I am sure that the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) would get up and claim that he had done the same—

Mr. Walker: I have.

Mr. Sillars: I make no such claim.
I now come to the second pillar of the Government's case—that no more cash can be offered because none is available, and that if it is made available it can only come out of patient care. The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) has said several times that the cost of prolonging the dispute is twice as much as it would have taken to settle it. No Conservative Member, and especially not the Secretary of State for Health, has answered the question posed by the hon. Member for Livingston about how the Secretary of State can find money to prolong a dispute when he denies his ability to find money to settle it.
There are other costs. It is said that the money must be taken from patient care, but there are other costs not inside the Health Service that are important to the community. What about police time? According to a parliamentary answer, the police in Scotland have turned out to 6,700 cases. Some 166,060 police man hours in England have been devoted to trying to tackle the problem in the ambulance service. What about the loss of police manpower in a society in which people are concerned about crime and security? Of course the loss is unquantifiable, but the citizen is entitled to ask why police are being sent to try to do the work of the ambulance staff when the work that they should be doing is securing the position of people in society.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on the quality of service given by the police, the Army, the Navy and the Royal Air Force in undertaking emergency duties that should be carried out by the ambulance service? That service is of a low standard simply because the people in those services are untrained and inexperienced in carrying it out. They are not qualified to do it, they do not want to do it and they should not have to do it. The issue could be resolved if the Government stopped being so awkward and understood the desire of the ambulance workers to carry out the service that they have been trained for and should be paid to do.

Mr. Sillars: I do not think that I have met anyone in the police who would argue for a moment that the police provide exactly the same standard of service. There is no question of that.

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Môn): Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Police Federation of England and Wales supports the claim of the ambulance men?

Mr. Sillars: I am aware of that. I am a former fireman, and all the firemen that I know take exactly the same position.
Pillars three and four of the Government's case are intertwined. They are a no-pay-review formula, linked to the assertion that, while ambulance crews are part of an

emergency service, they are somehow or other, in the Secretary of State's eyes, of a lower status. Last year, the Secretary of State said:
I do not accept that comparisons can be made with other emergency services, when only one tenth of the mileage of the ambulance service is taken up by emergencies."—[Official Report, 7 November 1989; Vol. 159, c. 855.]
That is deeply insulting to ambulance crews.
I hope that that gibe was not aimed at the crew in Lockerbie, which turned out within three minutes of the call about that disaster. If we went to Lockerbie ambulance station and looked at the log book, we could probably prove that only one tenth of the mileage was for emergency services, but that is not the relevant point. The relevant point is that, when the emergency arose, the ambulance men had the commitment to fulfil their obligations to the community.
The Secretary of State's point of view shows a total incomprehension of how all our emergency services operate and the demands that they make upon the psychology, the physical condition, the bravery and the commitment of those engaged in them.

Mr. Richard Holt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way.

Mr. Sillars: No. I have given way fairly generously.
I should like to compare the police, the fire service and the ambulance service. Some police officers undertake duties such as school crossing patrols. Those duties are important, but they do not constitute an emergency. Crime prevention is important, but it is not an immediate emergency. We can only guess at what special branch does, but I do not think that it engages in emergencies. The police have duties in community involvement and desk duties, and much time is taken up in court attendance. Those are all non-emergency activities, but no one would argue for a moment that the police are not an emergency service, because, when required, police officers have the ability to turn out.

Mr. Holt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?

Mr. Sillars: No. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is not getting in.
I am a former fireman, and my brother recently retired as a fire officer. Over the years, I have kept in touch with my mates in the fire service. They are involved in non-emergency work such as equipment cleaning, maintenance and repairs. Fire prevention staff rarely turn out in emergencies, and the service also uses part-time and retained firemen in various parts of the country who, by their very definition, do not work mainly in the fire service. Nevertheless, they turn out for emergencies. Lockerbie has a part-time fire station, yet it turned out within six minutes the first appliance to attend the disaster there. In the case of the police and fire services, it is not necessary to prove that their staff are always engaged in emergency turnouts.
Ambulance staff are in exactly the same position. They undertake a great deal of routine work, but when there is a Clapham, a King's Cross, a Lockerbie or a Hillsborough, ambulance staff or whatever grade turn out to provide emergency services—and they all bring professionalism, skills, commitment and will power to the job in hand.
From my own experience as someone who has served in the fire brigade, I can tell the House that a great deal is required of men and women who respond to emergency


calls. They are expected to go from dead stop to full ahead. One's heart is pounding and one's nerves are jangling, because one knows that one is about to encounter an horrific or potentially horrific situation. The police might find themselves confronted by an armed criminal. Firemen are expected to enter buildings full of flame and smoke from which other people are escaping. Ambulance staff must suppress the nausea they feel when dealing with injuries and burns that are horrible to contemplate and even worse to treat.
My brother, a former fire officer, made a very good point to me over the weekend. He pointed out that firemen save lives in the sense that they take people out of burning buildings and other difficult situations, but that their work is only potentially life-saving. If a life is saved, it is saved by the ambulance staff who take over and use the skills that firemen do not have, from the moment the firemen hand over a burned or devastated human being into the caring hands of the ambulance service.
The three services all have different characters, but they integrate in an emergency. When the Secretary of State says in a sarcastic voice that ambulance staff do not compare with firemen, we should remember that firemen acknowledge that ambulance crews turn out for more emergencies than they do. Also, every time that an ambulance crew is called out, it has to deal with a human being—which is not always the case in the fire service.
I turn to the fifth pillar—the Secretary of State's accusation about the morality of the dispute. In the debate on 11 January, he said:
the industrial action organised and taken by the trade unions concerned is against patients and patient services, and it cannot be justified—as industrial action in any essential service cannot be justified."—[Official Report, 11 January 1990; Vol. 164, c.1115.]
That is not a moral statement—it is moral blackmail. We as a society have no right to tell people that, because we need them, they must meet our demands, irrespective of the costs to themselves and to their families.
If one were to try to lift the Secretary of State's views out of the depths of moral blackmail and on to a plane of genuine morality, the wording of that statement would instead read, "As industrial action in any essential service cannot be justified, we have special review mechanisms to ensure that our emergency services are never taken advantage of."
If there is a moral equation between society and the emergency services, as in every other decent equation, morally there are two sides—there are rights on the public side but the public also have obligations to the people who serve them. The words that I read out are the moral equation; they are applied to the police and the fire service and they should be applied to ambulance staff.
Now I come to the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks). He said that the Secretary of State had a personal responsibility to intervene. Hon. Members may have seen him on the Channel 4 programme. I thought at first that he was at a Nottingham Forest game, tossing the coin, but it turned out to be a commentary by him on the dispute. There is no question of his being a key player. He said on that programme that he is the man who provides the money, and how could he respond to ambulance staff demands? He has produced and presented radio programmes, and produced and presented the Channel 4 programme. I turned on the television set, and there he was in a

helicopter above the north of England. The public want him to come down out of the air, and get to the negotiating chamber along with the trade unions.
Finally, there are the changed circumstances that I mentioned earlier—the Government's electoral prospects. My remarks bypass Conservative Members on the Front Bench, and are intended for Tory Back Benchers—an extremely anxious Conservative Party at present. The more that the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) shakes his head, the more convinced I am about the accuracy of my statement.
I shall quote from Scotland on Sunday, published yesterday, 18 February. Under the headline "Thatcher set to ride out stormy spell", the article quotes a "Downing Street source"—there are no guesses or prizes for who that might be—who
disclosed yesterday that Thatcher was reconciled to electoral setbacks as an inevitable consequence of mounting mortgage rates and high poll tax charges in England"—
she is in the same boat in Scotland—
'The Prime Minister knows that the path of true love is never smooth'".
It must come as a great surprise to all members of the public, racked by inflation, mortgage interest payments and high rents, that they are embraced in a passionate love affair with the Prime Minister, or that they are at least being propositioned by her.
'Of course it's all very painful. But it's painful because it's working'".
Has it never struck the Tory Party that it is painful and that it is not working?
If this is Bernard Ingham speaking he must be losing his marbles completely, because the article continues:
Medicine that works is always painful.
That has never been my experience; it is sometimes true, but often it is not.
But this attitude is certain to deepen despair among back-benchers who fear a bitter backlash in the Tory heartlands.
The article goes on to comment on the mid-Staffordshire by-election and the local government elections in England, Wales and Scotland.
The quotation within a quotation from Scotland on Sunday demonstrates that the Tory Party's leader is now deep in the bunker, obsessed with a bunker mentality—a leader denying reality. She appears to have drawn into the bunker with her the Secretary of State for Health. Like first world war generals, they are driving their troops in front of them into the electoral slaughterhouse.
Does anyone think that it will be pleasant to be a Tory canvasser on the streets for the Mid-Staffordshire election or the local government elections in England, Wales and Scotland? Let us consider those elections. The Government must attend to this problem, because their vested interests are involved. Do they want to go canvassing on the poll tax, water charges, the current level of inflation, current interest rates or current mortgages and rents, or on the difficult Budget that we are all told is coming, or with the National Health Service Bill still in Committee, agitating the general population?
The Government cannot avoid campaigning on any of those issues. Do they really want to add to that poisonous cocktail their continuing dispute with the ambulance staff? Do their canvassers in the Mid-Staffordshire by-election campaign want to go down the pavements bumping into people who have just put money in the buckets of the ambulance staff, and asking them to vote Tory? It is absurd.
Any professional politician who wants to be in that position is in the bunker with the lady in Downing street—on the point of being medically unfit for leadership. The only conclusion that a Tory can draw from the present state of affairs—in his own interests, if not in the interests of the ambulance staff—is that he should seek to get genuine negotiations reopened to end the dispute. Tory Back Benchers can save themselves only by saving themselves from the folly of those on their own Front Bench.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Forsyth): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
recognises the important contribution made by the skilled and dedicated service of ambulance staff; regrets that some have seen fit to prolong and intensify the action taken against patients in furtherance of the current pay dispute; appreciates the work of the police, the armed forces and the voluntary services in maintaining an adequate emergency service; supports the Government and National Health Service management on their handling of the dispute; calls on the trade union leaders to ensure that the undertakings they have given to maintain an adequate emergency service are met; believes that the dispute can only be resolved by the resumption of negotiations; and calls on the trade union leadership to recognise and act upon this.".
Let me begin by saying to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) in respect of his latter remarks that, judging by the opinion polls in Scotland, we should not be taking any advice from him about how to maintain our position. After all, his party is sliding gracefully into third place behind the Scottish Conservative party.
When we face the electorate, we shall expect to be judged on our record of good management of the Health Service, which can be seen partly in the record number of patients being treated in Scotland. Our record of good management of the Health Service arises from the fact that this Government have always sought to do what is right by the Health Service—which is not, perhaps, to take the advice of Opposition Members.
No party represented in the House has a monopoly on admiration for the work of the ambulance service, and no party can claim that it alone supports the ambulance service and its workers. The Government support the ambulance workers and recognise their skill and dedication. It is interesting to note that, in a long speech, the hon. Member for Govan never once referred to the patient transport services arm of the ambulance service, but instead addressed all his remarks to the emergency services. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the trade unions' claim is for recognition across the board for all sections of the ambulance service on an equal basis.
Having acknowledged the marvellous job done by the ambulance service, I must add that it is unfortunate that there should be industrial action in pursuit of a pay claim within that service, because there is no doubt that it is causing substantial disruption to the service and serious damage to patient care. The elderly are not being taken to their day centres. People are not getting to hospital for their courses of physiotherapy treatment, and waiting lists are being lengthened at a time when the Government are investing £7 million in reducing waiting lists in Scotland.

Once again, the Opposition support those who take industrial action resulting in waiting lists being lengthened and in patient care being disrupted.
The admiration that we have for the ambulance service is perhaps reflected among those staff, of whom there are many thousands, who have continued to provide a full service and to carry out their duties, thus putting patients first. I should have thought that all Opposition Members would acknowledge and welcome their actions.
I want to put on record the strain placed on senior management and on officers working to maintain essential services. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy) should be shaking his head, because some people in the ambulance service have worked extremely hard to ensure that the 999 service has continued.

Mr. John McAllion: The Minister will be aware that, two weekends ago, three people died in Dundee who might have been saved if ambulance workers had been able to attend them. However, the management locked out the ambulance workers and denied them access to life-saving equipment.

Mr. Forsyth: If the hon. Gentleman wants to refer to examples in Dundee, I am sure that he saw the same BBC programme as I did, in which an ambulance man confessed that he had put attendance at a union meeting before answering an emergency call. To his credit, he has apologised. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that the dispute will be settled by engaging in that kind of argument, I have to disagree with him. There is a clear duty on the ambulance service management to ensure that the Scottish ambulance service procedures are followed. Management have made it perfectly clear that, when those procedures are followed, they will do everything in their power to ensure that the service continues.

Mr. Thomas McAvoy: I intervene only because the Minister referred to me earlier. He has referred to the senior management in the Scottish ambulance service. Does he not believe that morale in the ambulance service will be affected by Mr. James Wilby questioning the integrity of the people with whom he will have to work in future?

Mr. Forsyth: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that his name is John, not James, Wilby. I believe that he is just as inaccurate in suggesting that Mr. Wilby has questioned the integrity of his staff. I know John Wilby, and his dedication to the ambulance service. He has spent most of his career in the service. It does not help to attack him in that way.
Senior management and officers have worked extremely hard to maintain essential services. If only for the benefit of the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), I want to place on record my thanks to the police, the voluntary services and the Army, who have had to step in when patients have been put at risk. They have done so because there has been no alternative, despite the fact that a clear undertaking had been given by trade union leaders that the emergency service would be maintained. That undertaking has not been met in a number of instances.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: A very dear friend of mine had to be taken to hospital by the police because no ambulance was available. When I was at the West Kensington tube station the other day, some


ambulance men were collecting money from the public in buckets. An ambulance came along. I thought that it was going about its normal duties, but it just picked up the ambulance men, complete with cash buckets—presumably to take them to their next cash collection point.

Mr. Forsyth: The House will have heard what my hon. Friend said. It is to be regretted that, despite the clear undertaking by trade union leaders that the emergency service would be maintained, that has not happened in a number of cases.

Mr. Corbyn: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Forsyth: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.
I noted that, over the weekend, the hon. Member for Govan was quoted in the newspapers as describing the tactics that are being pursued as "brilliant and exemplary". If he thinks that there is anything brilliant or exemplary about Edinburgh being left with only two ambulances to cover the whole city, I could not disagree with him more. He has a responsibility to ask those men, who are not even following the advice of their trade union leaders, to ensure that a proper service is maintained.

Mr. Corbyn: Does the Minister accept that, all over the country, ambulance managements are standing down ambulance workers who are ready, able and willing to provide an emergency service, that they are asking the poice or the armed forces to deal with emergency cases instead, and that those who are sent in to carry out emergency work do not want to do it, are not qualified to do it and, furthermore, are not equipped to do it? Those whom they blame for having to do that work are the Conservative party and the Government. If he is genuine, why does the Minister not demonstrate his support for the ambulance workers by meeting the unions and coming to an agreement, so that a proper emergency service can be restored?

Mr. Forsyth: If the men in the Scottish ambulance service are prepared to work to the TUC guidelines and to provide an emergency service, they will be paid 100 per cent. on the emergency side. On the patient transport side, if the TUC guidelines are followed and if the ambulance men are prepared to take elderly people to their day hospitals, they will also be paid 100 per cent. There is absolutely no need for local authorities to set up alternative services at a cost to the community charge payer, and there is every opportunity for an emergency service to be maintained within TUC guidelines if that is what the trade unions wish to deliver. The public are entitled to that.

Mr. Siliars: Does not the Minister realise that, when a dispute involving an important public service continues for six months, there is at the heart of it a great struggle between the Government and the ambulance workers for public support, as that is a key element in any such dispute? Have not the public themselves passed judgment that the ambulance unions have conducted a brilliant campaign strategically and tactically, in that they have never withdrawn their services from the general public, who believe that, far from being brilliant, the Government's performance has been lamentable?

Mr. Forsyth: I am sure that every person in Glasgow will note that the hon. Member for Govan is completely

unaware that a 999 service was withdrawn from his own constituency, and that he has described that as "brilliant and exemplary".

Mrs. Maria Fyfe: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman cares to respond to the point just made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars)—that the public support the ambulance workers and have made that very clear for six months?

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Lady will have heard me say that the Government also support the ambulance workers. We support them for the service that they provide. But if we were to take the advice of the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Govan, which seems to be the same, and if we were to allow some procedure for determining pay such as the hon. Gentleman suggests, pay in the Health Service would press upon resources and the hon. Lady would find that the public in her constituency would complain about the loss of the development of services in the Health Service.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Forsyth: I should like to make some progress. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later.
For the benefit of the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), perhaps we should go back to 1986, as it is important to recognise the importance to the dispute of what has happened since then. Back in 1986, a new salary structure was agreed for the ambulance service, which included revised working practices and improved conditions. It was acknowledged by everyone on all sides that that represented a good deal for the ambulance service.
I have examined what had happened to prices and to wages in the ambulance service since that good deal was obtained. I discovered that prices to April 1989 have gone up by 23 per cent. and the pay of ambulance men, including the current offer which applies from April 1989, has gone up by 31 per cent. So there has been a real increase in ambulance men's pay of 8 per cent. over the 1986 settlement, which every ambulance man to whom I have spoken has acknowledged as a good settlement; they are on record as saying that it was a good deal.

Mr. Charles Kennedy: The Minister is talking about the increase in ambulance men's pay since 1986, but he should compare it with that of firemen and policemen over the same period. Firemen's pay has gone from a 7·3 per cent. increase in 1986 to one of 8·6 per cent. for the current financial year; policemen's pay has gone from a 7·5 per cent. increase to 9·25 per cent. for the current financial year, and ambulance men's pay has gone from an increase of 6 per cent. to the current offer of between 6·5 per cent. and 9 per cent. over the past 18 months; but in the intervening two years, their pay increase dropped to between 5 and 6 per cent. They have consistently lost in comparison to other emergency services.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: It is not an emergency service: it is the emergency arm of the NHS, not the NHS arm of the emergency services. [Interruption.]

Mr. Forsyth: Perhaps I can answer the hon. Gentleman's point, as I did not hear what my hon. Friend said.
The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy), is arguing a separate point. My point is that, in 1986, the ambulance service was completely restructured in terms of pay and conditions, and the ambulance men acknowledged that as a good deal. When we compare their position in 1986 to what it is now, we see that ambulance men's pay has increased 8 per cent. faster than prices. In real terms, their pay is better than it was in 1986.
The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye asked me to make a comparison between ambulance men, fifth-year firefighters and other groups. I must be fair and say that the hon. Gentleman was right to say that, in terms of a comparison with firemen, the pay of ambulance men has not risen by as much, but in terms of the 1986 settlement, their pay has risen well ahead of inflation.
The management's final offer to the ambulance men is fair and reasonable. I am not sure whether everyone is aware of the nature of that offer, but I am certain that the hon. Member for Govan, judging by his speech, is completely unaware of it. I know that the hon. Member for Govan is aware that the offer is a 9 per cent. increase in pay, backdated to 1 April 1989.

Mr. Henry McLeish: It is over 18 months. Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Forsyth: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman later. I have already been very generous in giving way.
The nature of the offer is a 9 per cent. increase on all rates, backdated to 1 April last year. That is 9 per cent. over the current year, and that would run until the end of September this year. On 1 October, there will be an opportunity to negotiate a further increase. In addition to that, there is an extra £500 for all staff with paramedical skills.

Mr. Sillars: Will the Minister give way on that point?

Mr. Forsyth: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself until I have explained the offer—

Mr. Sillars: There are only eight people in Scotland with paramedical skills.

Mr. Forsyth: There is an extra £500 for staff with paramedical skills. I acknowledge that the number of people in Scotland with those skills is small.

Mr. Sillars: Small? There are only eight.

Mr. Forsyth: Actually, there are 24.

Mr. Sillars: Only eight.

Mr. Forsyth: No, 24.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Anyway, there are not very many.

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Member for Govan did not mention the most important part of the offer. There is an offer of a joint review of the 1986 salary structure, without the preconditions on the scope or timing of the outcome. The offer provides the ambulance men with an opportunity to accept a 9 per cent. pay rise—and the small number, admittedly, with paramedical skills would receive the extra £500—and the opportunity in October to get a further increase. They would also be able to consider the 1986 arrangement and the work carried out by the

emergency services and the patient transport services. All that could be done without preconditions. The ambulance men have the opportunity to accept a good pay increase and have negotiations at the same time. That is a fair and generous offer.

Mr. McLeish: Is the Minister aware that the Government have tried to confuse the public? Will he tell the House and the listening public what the nature of the offer is over 12 months from April?

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman did not really mean to ask me that. The nature of the offer over 12 months from 1 April 1989 is an increase of 9 per cent. That is a pretty reasonable offer.

Mr. McLeish: rose—

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman wanted to know the nature of the offer from 1 April.

Mr. McLeish: The offer is over 18 months. What does that offer equate to over 12 months? How much cash, in percentage terms, will the ambulance men and women receive in the 12-month period from April to April, not over the 18 months?

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) is an Opposition Front-Bench spokesman responsible, I believe, for industry, but he does not understand the nature of this offer. I will tell him again.
Over the 12 months from 1 April 1989 until 31 March 1990, the ambulance men will get a 9 per cent. pay increase that will be backdated to that date. Therefore, they will get a lump sum back payment. I hope that that is clear to the hon. Gentleman. From 1 April of this year until 30 September will also be 9 per cent., in so far as that 9 per cent. offer will extend over 18 months. On 1 October there will be an opportunity for a new arrangement to be reached.

Mr. Skinner: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), characteristically, understands that point only too well.

Mr. Skinner: Obviously, there is a gap between April and October, and that is the part that must be filled. We have 9 per cent. over 12 months and we have a gap of another six months. That makes 18 months. We have 9 per cent. They are paid over 18 months. That is roughly equivalent to 6·5 per cent. over 12 months.

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman disappoints me. He will know that the original offer was 6·5 per cent. That offer was recommended to the ambulance men by their trade union negotiators.

Mr. Corbyn: They rejected it.

Mr. Forsyth: They rejected it. The trade union leaders believed that an offer of 6·5 per cent, was fair, and they recommended it to their members, but their members rejected it. Management, being reasonable and flexible, offered 9 per cent. over 12 months. The offer that is being made now is 9 per cent. until 30 September this year, with the opportunity then to discuss arrangements for the remainder of that year and also to review the structure of the 1986 settlement.

Mr. Robin Cook: Three times the Minister has said—I have been counting—that the offer is 9 per cent. over 12 months. It is important that we know whether the Minister is developing the Government's offer. I do not believe that I give away any secrets about this, but the Ministery will probably be aware that, the last time staff and management met Duncan Nichol before Christmas, it was made plain to Duncan Nichol that, if the offer was made at 9 per cent. for 12 months, the staff side could settle.
The Minister must be quite clear with the words that he is using. If he is prepared to say that it is a 9 per cent. offer over 12 months, this debate will have fulfilled a useful function and we can resolve the dispute this evening. The Minister must be quite honest and clear. Is that what he is saying? If he is not saying that, he should not mislead the House by using the very form of words that the staff side said that they would be willing to settle for.

Mr. Forsyth: The role that I am performing is educating the hon. Gentleman's colleagues about the nature of the increase in wages that ambulance men would enjoy in the period from 1 April 1989 to 31 March 1990, which would be a 9 per cent. increase. It is certainly true that the 9 per cent. that was offered is over an 18-month period, and it is certainly true that, having had their 9 per cent. increase, that would hold good until 30 September, when there would be an opportunity for further discussion about any increases subsequent to that.
It is quite wrong for the hon. Member for Bolsover to imply that this is some kind of confidence trick. If it is a confidence trick, it is an expensive one, because it involved finding £6 million of new money to fund it. That is a very real movement on the part of management.

Mr. Sillars: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Forsyth: I shall not give way. I must make some progress.
The improved offer that was made by management, which cost £6 million in 1989–90, was not even discussed by the main trade unions involved, but was rejected out of hand. The Government's position is that this dispute can be settled by negotiation and discussion. Management made an improved generous offer, which cost an extra £6 million, and it was not even discussed by the unions involved. Instead, they have persisted in taking industrial action that has caused untold misery to many elderly and sick people.
The hon. Member for Govan asked about the cost of the dispute. He asked how we can find the money to pay for the police, the Army and the voluntary services that are continuing to provide a service to the patient. The answer is simple: we have an obligation to try to maintain the emergency service, and that is what management have set out to do.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that simply allowing one group of workers in the Health Service to leapfrog the established arrangements for determining pay and conditions would incur no cost. I could not disagree with him more. Our package is fair and reasonable. It gives a 9 per cent. increase for the current year and offers scope for further discussion, and the trade unions should resume negotiations first.
The hon. Gentleman told us of his experience as a fireman and said that lives were saved by ambulance staff. He is right: lives often are saved by ambulance staff; but

they are saved also by doctors, nurses, technicians and many thousands of other dedicated people in the Health Service. All those groups have long since settled. Administrative and clerical staff settled for 6·25 per cent. from 1 April 1989, and ancillary staff settled for 6·5 per cent. from April 1989. Fewer than 1 per cent. of NHS employees have yet to settle. The bulk of them—dedicated professional people—have taken 6·5 per cent., which was the original offer recommended by the trade unions to the ambulance men.

Mr. Robert Hughes: The Minister said that the difficulty was that any increased costs as a result of the increase in pay for ambulance personnel would have to come out of services, and that therefore other people within the Health Service would suffer. Is he saying that the cost of providing the police, for example, will come out of existing police budgets, that police budgets will have to suffer, and that those who depend on the police will suffer? Is he saying that the Government are providing new money to pay for the dispute and to pay for the police and other people involved? If that is what he is saying, is he not admitting that he is prepared to put dogma before the personal safety of patients, by finding extra money that could be paid to the ambulance personnel and get the dispute settled?

Mr. Forsyth: I take that as a plea by the hon. Gentleman that community charge payers in his constituency should meet the cost of the dispute. If the costs of the police were not to be met centrally by Government, they would be yet another charge on the community charge payer. I do not think that it would be right to expect the community charge payer to meet the costs of policing. Of course, Labour-controlled councils that are setting up alternative ambulance services will do so at the cost of the community charge payer.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) will remember that the previous Labour Government got into a mess over pay in the Health Service. That is why they had to cut the hospital building programme by one quarter. That is why they ended up cutting nurses' pay by one quarter in real terms. Inflation got out of hand. Because this Government have ensured good management within the Health Service, we have seen a development of the Service, more patients being treated and new services being provided—as in the hon. Gentleman's own constituency, where cardiac services have been expanded, which he has welcomed.
When the bulk of the dedicated staff in the National Health Service have settled for 6·5 per cent., it cannot possibly be right to agree to make some provision for ambulance men that is outwith the normal methods of determining pay and conditions, simply because some of their members are prepared to put patient care at risk.
The hon. Member for Govan said that we should try to move towards arbitration. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) asked whether he could give an example of that tried and tested procedure inside the Health Service. He was unable to do so, because there is no agreed provision for arbitration within Whitley. If we were to say to the ambulance men, "You can have arbitration," what about the other groups in the Health Service? What about the other groups within Whitley? What is the point of having Whitley if every group can simply disagree and move to arbitration?

Mr. Sillars: Why not?

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman says, "Why not?" The Health Service has well over 1 million employees, and 150,000 in Scotland. There would be chaos if every pay discussion went to arbitration. The system for determining ambulance pay and conditions within Whitley, which the hon. Gentleman repudiates, was satisfactory for several years when the settlements reached what was proposed by the ambulance men themselves.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Does the Under-Secretary not understand that the Whitley council provisions come from an age-old process that was established before we faced the tremendous difficulties of inflation that have persisted for 20 or 30 years? In my view, therefore, the whole Whitley council procedure should be rejigged to look at these matters—

Mr. Sillars: And the Select Committee on Social Services said so.

Mr. Forsyth: I am sure that the whole House will be impressed by the strong statement made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North against nationally organised bargaining through councils such as the Whitley councils. I hope that it will not embarrass the hon. Gentleman if I make common cause with him in a few moments.
Management must be responsible for pay. Pay in the National Health Service cannot be a matter for Government to determine, especially when 70 per cent. of its costs relate to pay. Management must determine the balance between service development and the amount that it can put forward for improving wages and salaries.
We are determined that there should be a better ambulance service in the future. We want to see more staff with paramedic skills. The hon. Member for Govan made great play of the fact that there are only 24 in Scotland. I should like to see a lot more—and our pay offer reflects that. It encourages people to acquire such skills. Although I approved a programme for increasing the numbers last November, it is now being held up by the dispute. We want the dispute to be resolved so that we can get on with establishing a service that has more paramedics.
We have increased spending on the Scottish ambulance service by 40 per cent. in real terms—that is even more than the amount by which we have increased expenditure on the Health Service overall, which has increased by one third.

Mr. Sillars: rose—

Mr. Forsyth: I have been very generous to the hon. Gentleman already—

Mr. Sillars: Will the Minister give way on this point?

Mr. Forsyth: Very well, I give way again to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Sillars: I thank the Minister for giving way. On Friday evening, I met a constituent who is a qualified ambulance man. On 16 August 1988, he received a letter congratulating him on his interest in undertaking extended training to become a paramedic. He then received a letter in February 1989, telling him how well he had done and that he had passed the pre-test examination. Then he got a letter on 3 July 1989, telling him:
Unfortunately, at the very last minute, our Professional Advisory Group have come into conflict with the Scottish Home and Health Department.

My constituent wants to become what is known as a paramedic, but cannot because of the Minister's Department. That is why we have only eight paramedics in Scotland.

Mr. Forsyth: I do not recall receiving any correspondence from the hon. Gentleman about that case. If it goes back to July 1989, he has taken a long time to raise the matter—

Mr. Sillars: I met the gentleman concerned on Friday.

Mr. Forsyth: If the gentleman came to see the hon. Gentleman on Friday and the correspondence goes back to July 1989, as I have just said, the fact remains that, in November last year, we decided to increase the training of paramedical staff, and that is now being held up. The hon. Gentleman is simply scoring points, when the real issue is whether there are opportunities for people to acquire paramedical skills. There are such opportunities, but they are being held up by the dispute, and the hon. Gentleman is not really helping to resolve it.

Mr. Dennis Turner: rose—

Mr. Forsyth: I shall give way once more.

Mr. Turner: When will the Minister get round to telling us the cost of the dispute? The general public want to judge the Government on whether they have handled the dispute well or badly, as a result of the costs that the Government have incurred by continuing the dispute rather than settling it. Will the Minister please tell us the cost and set that against the pay increase that has been sought by the ambulance men?

Mr. Forsyth: If the hon. Gentleman had been here from the beginning of the debate, he might be more enlightened. He asks me about the cost of the dispute, but the cost is not measured only in money; it is measured in all those elderly people who are not getting to their day centres or to their out-patient appointments, and in increased waiting lists. If the hon. Gentleman had been here to listen to the debate from the beginning, he would know that there is the opportunity for the ambulance men to get a 9 per cent. increase in pay and for discussions on the future of the service to continue.
The point that I was seeking to convey when the hon. Gentleman intervened was that the management must be in a position to work out the balance between pay and service developments. If I can speak for the Scottish ambulance service—I am amazed that a Scottish nationalist Member should complain that the Secretary of State for Scotland should have responsibility for replying to the debate—

Mr. Sillars: Where is he?

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman should know that I speak for and on behalf of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. My right hon. and learned Friend has responsibility for the ambulance service in Scotland. I thought it amazing that the hon. Member for Govan should complain about that and suggest that it should be the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, whose responsibilities are south of the border. That is an unworthy complaint.
I turn now to developments in the Scottish ambulance service, because I take it that the hon. Gentleman is interested in such developments in Scotland—

Mr. Sillars: And in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Forsyth: We plan to spend £6 million on a new radio communications system and £4·7 million on eight new communications centres. We are planning the computerisation of the ambulance service and are currently carrying out trials and pilot studies on the use of helicopters in Scotland. We are also planning a reduction in single manning.
Those developments are possible only if the management can judge what proportion of the resources should go into service development and what proportion into pay. If we were to listen to the hon. Member for Govan, all the resources would go on pay and there would be no service development. The first people to suffer would be the constituents of the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) and other people in rural areas, who will be the very ones to benefit from developments on single manning and from the use of helicopters to improve the emergency service.
Management must be able to judge the balance between pay and such developments. It would be wrong for Ministers to second-guess them or to force them to take decisions that are not in line with their view of the development of the service.

Mr. Turner: What about the cost of the police and the Army?

Mr. Forsyth: From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Turner) is asking me about the police and the Army, and the hon. Member for Govan has already asked about parity for the ambulance service with the police and fire services. I advise the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) that I do not recall the last Labour Government arguing the case for parity between the ambulance service and the police and fire services. I recall them setting up the Clegg commission, and I seem to remember that the Clegg commission rejected parity on the grounds that accident and emergency work was only a small proportion of the duties of ambulance staff. I must tell the hon. Member for Govan that the ambulance service is the emergency arm of the Health Service; it is not the health arm of the emergency service—the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) made earlier from a sedentary position.
It is right to say that the accident and emergency service accounts for only 10 per cent. of the journeys carried out by the ambulance service. Nothing has changed in the past 10 years to alter the arguments that were considered by the Clegg commission or the decision that was taken by the last Labour Government.

Mr. Holt: Will my hon. Friend reconsider what he has said about Clegg, and note that, when the Clegg commission investigated this matter, it did so at the fag end of the inquiry, and that no substantial evidence was brought to bear? There were anecdotal remarks by the management on that occasion, but neither side in the dispute has subsequently provided any statistical evidence to show how much time is spent on emergencies and how much is spent on routine matters.

Mr. Forsyth: My hon. Friend has been helpful in telling the House his view of what Clegg said. However, that does not alter the facts of the matter, the position of the previous Labour Government or the fact that, subsequent to Clegg, in 1986, when there was a reorganisation of the position of ambulance men, that argument was not deployed or found to be significant.

Mr. Robin Cook: Perhaps I could help the Minister to refresh his memory of exactly what Clegg said on the matter. His comment on whether ambulance staff spent more of their time on emergency services is in paragraph 32 of the report. He said:
The employers also made clear to us their view that there was a distinction to be drawn between ambulancemen involved in emergency work (which occupied, in their view, only 10 per cent. of all activity) and the ambulancemen involved in the routine movements of patients.
Is it not crystal clear from that statement that Clegg carried out no investigation and made no study of how much time was spent on emergency work? When the management quote Clegg, they merely quote back the echo of their own evidence to Clegg, which has never been substantiated.

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman's party was in power and gave the terms of reference. If it was his party's policy that the ambulance men should have parity with the firemen and police, it was open to it to give them parity when it was in Government. If the hon. Gentleman seriously argues that Clegg would not have recommended parity if he thought that there was a case for it, I must take issue with him.
It is not a claim but a matter of fact that 10 per cent. of journeys are for accident and emergency purposes.

Mr. Cook: It is not a fact.

Mr. Forsyth: It is a matter of fact. If the hon. Gentleman argues that small acknowledgements should be made of the accident and emergency service and its activities, the final offer made by management provides for that. It provides for a complete review. Instead of fanning the flames of the dispute, the hon. Gentleman should urge the trade unions to go back to the negotiating table and seize the opportunity to put their arguments.

Mr. Cook: The Minister has made an important and interesting statement. He has just said that it is a fact that one in 10 calls are emergency work. He must he aware that, when we have attempted to find evidence for that fact, we have been told in parliamentary answers that the information is not centrally available. He must also be aware that his colleague, the Secretary of State for Health, referred me to figures collected by York district health authority on behalf of the whole of England. Those figures show that, far from one in 10 calls being emergencies, the figure is one in five. Will the Minister please give us the evidence for the fact that he declaims?

Mr. Forsyth: I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman—[interruption.]—setting out the basis on which the figures have been compounded. [HON. MEMBERS: "Tell us now."]. If the hon. Member for Livingston seriously challenges the position that about one in 10 of ambulance journeys are for emergency purposes, he will find himself at odds even with the ambulance men themselves. I do not know how many


ambulance men he has spoken to recently. I spend quite a lot of time speaking to them. They tend to be outside most of my meetings these days. The fact is not in dispute.
Even the hon. Gentleman must know that, in Scotland, the emergency service is organised on a separate basis for the non-emergency service in our urban areas. It is not a matter of great mystery how many patient journeys are emergency and how many non-emergency. If there is any variation in statistics, it is on the classification of journeys as either urgent or emergency journeys. The hon. Gentleman makes a non-point. If that is the best that he can do to undermine the Government's case that the trade unions should go back to the negotiating table, I look forward to his speech with interest.
I certainly believe that pay negotiations in future should allow—this is where I agree with the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North, who, alas, has now left the Chamber—for more local flexibility to cover recruitment, retention and local needs. The inflexible national pay bargaining process which exists in many parts of the Health Service is increasingly nonsense. The ambulance service is a clear case where local management must have more responsibility and discretion in the future.
We want a settlement of the current dispute. We want a better accident and emergency service, with more paramedical staff. We are interested in local productivity deals which will release resources for better pay. On the table now is a 9 per cent. increase in pay and the offer of talks without preconditions for the future. I urge the trade unions to take us at our word and to restore the service which the public are entitled to expect.

Mr. Robin Cook: It is a sign of the desperation of the Minister's party in Scotland that he expressed satisfaction that it has managed to squeeze past the Scottish National party in the latest opinion poll by an amount which is the same as the margin of sampling error of the opinion poll. I warn the hon. Gentleman that it will take only another couple of speeches like the one that we have just heard to take his party back into third place.
It is extremely revealing that it took us so long during the Minister's speech to drag out of him the fact that the Government's current offer is in truth an offer of 9 per cent. over 18 months. If the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues really believe that that is a fair, decent and honest offer, why did he go to such lengths to pretend that it was not 9 per cent. over 18 months? Of course he knows the truth. That is why it was so difficult for him to utter the words "9 per cent. over 18 months". It is well below the rate at which any group outside the Health Service and many groups within the Health Service have settled.
It is entertaining that the Minister was caught out claiming as facts matters on which he did not have a brief. Let me amplify the point that I made to him in my intervention: during the previous debate on the ambulance service, the Secretary of State for Health referred me to the figures from York, claiming that one in 10 calls to the ambulance service were emergency calls. He went on helpfully to say that emergency calls in the Health Service are defined to include moving people who are seriously ill straight to hospital on the advice of a doctor.
I have consulted those figures. The figures collected in York show that the proportion of emergency patients as a proportion of all ambulance patients is 18·2 per cent. That is not one in 10, but almost one in five. The proportion of ambulance mileage spent on emergency calls is 28·6 per cent. of all ambulance calls. That is one in five of all patients and over one in four of ambulance miles. I ask again: where do the data come from to support the claim that one in 10 calls are to emergencies?

Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that my responsibilities extend only to north of the border. He asked me to justify the figure of 10 per cent. The figures are as follows: there were 156,770 accident and emergency journeys, 176,956 urgent journeys, and 1,664,020 passenger transport service journeys out of a total of 1,997,746. That substantiates my point that one in 10 journeys were for emergencies. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not feel that I have wasted the time of the House. Rather than go through the figures for all the health boards, perhaps he will be content if I write to him.

Mr. Cook: We shall be interested to see those figures. If the Government are sitting on such figures, I find it perplexing that they decline to answer questions on them.
I remind the Minister that we are debating a British dispute and a British motion. Even if the figures that he quoted are thrown in as the Scottish contribution to the United Kingdom figures collected by York, it is perfectly plain that one in five of all patients are carried in an emergency and over one in four of all ambulance miles are for emergency calls.
Even if the figure were one in 10—the statistics do not support that contention—that exceeds the proportion of time spent by the police on emergency calls. It is probably broadly comparable with the amount of time that the fire brigade spends on emergency calls. No one would dream of contesting the fact that the police and fire brigade are emergency services because they spend only 10 per cent. of their time on emergency calls. Why, then, should Conservative Members make it such a point of principle to deny that for ambulance staff?
What should cause most concern to the House, and undoubtedly will cause most concern and disappointment to the world outside, is that, during what was not a brief contribution to the debate, the Minister did not produce a single idea on how the stalemate would be broken. Not one new avenue of negotiation was opened up, not one new channel by which a second opinion might be taken. The only basis on which he held out the hope of settlement was if the staff side surrendered and accepted what has been on the table for the past three months. That was the Minister's sole contribution.
This is the sixth occasion when I have addressed the House on this issue. If, on the first occasion, at the end of November, I had been asked whether I would expect to address the House on the same matter at the end of February, I would have had difficulty crediting it. I still have difficulty in believing that even this Government have proved so stubborn, so dogmatic and so indifferent to public opinion that they have stonewalled the dispute for almost six months and not even met the staff side for more than two months.
My thoughts were unusually well expressed by the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes), who, a fortnight ago in the London Evening Standard, was quoted as saying:


That a settlement is not even remotely within sight is remarkable, that the two sides are not even talking is obscene.
Most of my hon. Friends and, I suspect, some Conservative Members would agree with the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Michael Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman can have him, if he likes.

Mr. Cook: I rather suspect that, instead of having the hon. Member for Harlow, we shall have his seat at the next general election.
Since that article, written only three weeks ago, three attempts have been made to bring the two sides together: by Church leaders, by an all-party group of Members of the other place and last week by the promptings of the chief ambulance officers—the very people whom Ministers keep telling us are the management of the ambulance service and should be allowed to get on with the process of negotiation themselves. Each of those three bids failed to bring about talks, because each time the management and the ministerial side refused to talk.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: Does my hon. Friend agree that the great British public see this as the Government seeking to grind the ambulance workers into dust while they, by their generosity and widespread support for the ambulance workers' case, refuse to allow the Government to do so?

Mr. Cook: I will have comments to make about the degree of public support for the ambulance service later in my speech. It was notable that the Minister, although claiming to pay attention to opinion polls when they allowed the Tory party in Scotland to sneak into second place, ignored the opinion polls that related to the merits of the dispute.
My hon. Friend leads me to question why the public support the ambulance workers. We have all had opportunities to see ambulance staff at work, and over the past six months many of us have found ourselves in circumstances when we have witnessed their absence and the cost in human terms of that absence. It occurred to me a fortnight ago when I appeared on "Question Time". Ironically, shortly after we began discussing the ambulance dispute, a member of the audience took a severe heart attack and we had to interrupt the recording to accommodate the incident.
Hon. Members who have taken part in that programme will know that it is recorded in the Greenwood theatre, which is part of Guy's hospital. Although we were on the periphery of a major hospital complex, it was some time before a police ambulance arrived. When it did, it had no oxygen for the patient, who was breathless and in severe distress. The police had no training in resuscitation techniques—nor, to be fair to them, would it have been much value to them, because they had no resuscitation equipment. The only stretcher equipment that they had was an ambulance trolley, which was unsuitable for manoeuvring the patient up and down the steps. I am sorry to say that, when the patient reached Guy's hospital immediately round the corner, he was dead on arrival.
Many cases have involved a patient having to wait for much longer periods than usual. Only last week, there was an inquest into the death of an 86-year-old man who fell down the stairs at home and broke his pelvis and seven ribs

in the fall. He waited eight hours before an Army ambulance came to collect him. His wife was quoted at the inquest as saying:
The waiting was really awful, sitting there thinking every car coming by was going to be an ambulance.
I agree with the Minister that the public focus is caught by such cases. The public imagination is captured by emergency cases. I agree that those who depend on the non-emergency services are reminded of the dispute not just once in a while when they require emergency attention, but every week when they cannot attend their day hospital or get the treatment that they require. Many of their medical conditions will undoubtedly have deteriorated in the past six months, because there is no way that one can backdate physiotherapy treatments at the end of the dispute.

Mr. Michael Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman gave the House a moving account of two incidents from his own experience. Will he join us in condemning those people who withdraw the 999 service and a service within TUC guidelines, and call upon all ambulance men to accept the advice which has been given and to maintain a 999 emergency service within TUC guidelines?

Mr. Cook: Every time I have been asked, I have condemned those few ambulance crews that have not operated within the TUC guidelines. On every occasion, my advice to ambulance staff has been to adhere to them. One of the main reasons why those guidelines are not being fulfilled by ambulance staff is that the management have put every possible impediment and difficulty in the way of the crews fulfilling those guidelines.
Ministers cannot avoid the fact that they have the responsibility that the dispute has continued for so long. Never once in those six months have Ministers sat down with the staff side to find a solution. No meeting, whether initiated by management or Ministers, has taken place within the past two months. Yet, while Ministers have been willing to tolerate the human cost, they have also been willing to shell out a large financial cost. That financial cost can be measured accurately, as human costs cannot.
The Secretary of State for Health and the Minister are given to advocating that we should seek to privatise parts of the ambulance service, on the basis that it would cost less. It is rather perverse that they have both prolonged the dispute by contracting the service out to the police, who cost more. The cost of the police and Army cover for the ambulance service certainly exceeds £20 million, and has probably cost about £25 million. That is not counting the £5 million paid to hill farmers in order to provide a statement so as to postpone the debate on the ambulance service three weeks ago.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: Is my hon. Friend aware that, on Friday, I received a written answer from the Secretary of State for Health which informed me that the London ambulance service did not yet know how much it had spent on military support, but that it had spent £7 million on additional support, of which £6·5 million went to the police up to the end of January?
Is my hon. Friend aware that the London public resent their money being spent against their interests? Furthermore, for the second time in two months, they resent the fact that the Secretary of State for Health is not here to speak for himself.

Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend quotes some helpful figures from London, which are part of the £25 million in my global total. To put my hon. Friend's figures in the best and most relevant perspective, it is necessary to look at how much is would cost to settle the dispute.
To meet the entire cost of the claim from the staff side would be £10 million only. That is equivalent to less than half the amount that the Government have been willing to pay the police and the Army to provide substitute services. I do not believe that it would even take £10 million to settle the dispute. If the Government met the unions halfway, they could get a settlement for £5 million—one fifth of what they have paid the police and the Army.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Surely the hon. Gentleman appreciates the implications for the National Health Service of giving in to such an industrial dispute. Why were the hon. Gentleman's arguments not pertinent to the Labour Government in 1978 during the fire service's dispute? The Labour Government, of which the hon. Gentlemen was a supporter, brought in the green goddess fire engines and actively fought that dispute.

Mr. Cook: I would not want the hon. Gentleman to overstate my support for the Labour Government on that occasion. For what it is worth, it was that dispute which resulted in the agreement, negotiated by my colleagues in the previous Labour Government, which has provided a pay mechanism in the fire brigade service and which has guaranteed 13 years of industrial peace. That is precisely why we find it incomprehensible that Conservative Members should resist the same deal for the ambulance staff.
Although I understand that the personal experience of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) will not necessarily change how he will vote on this occasion, or persuade him to speak in a different way, I had hoped, given his personal debt to the ambulance service, that the least he could have done about the dispute was to stay silent.

Mr. Corbyn: I do not know whether my hon. Friend noticed, but when he was explaining that to settle the ambulance dispute would cost £10 million, the Minister shook his head vigorously. We know that the Minister does not want to settle that dispute, and that he would rather break it. Has my hon. Friend speculated on how much money the Government are prepared to spend to destroy the dispute rather than to settle it and return a proper ambulance service to the people?

Mr. Cook: I shall happily give way if Conservative Members want to tell us how deep those coffers are. It is interesting to note that the Government can always find enough contingency funds to raid when it suits their political prejudices.
It is, of course, no criticism of the policemen or the Army personnel who have provided the service in the past four months to say that the money that has gone on that substitute service has, inevitably, purchased an inferior one. The police and Army personnel do not have the training or the experience to be exposed to the difficult and stressful circumstances in which they now find themselves.
I note that, for once, the Government amendment recognises the skills and dedication of the ambulance staff. Although that does not persuade me to vote for their amendment, that recognition of those skills, albeit belated,

is welcome. One of the most unpleasant parts of the Government's response to the dispute has been the way in which they have sought repeatedly to under-value the skill and competence of ambulance staff or the stressful circumstances in which those skills are used.
There has been much welcome talk of the skills of the paramedics. The Minister referred to those personnel, and was good enough to admit that the number of paramedics to whom he has offered the £500 is necessarily few. One of the main reasons why there are few paramedics is the pathetic provision made by the Government to provide the training necessary to acquire those paramedic skills.
The great majority of the 24 paramedics in Scotland mentioned—I should add the seven qualified in the London area—are people who have acquired their paramedical qualification in their own time because they were not allowed time off to train. It is a sign of their motivation that, despite the fact that they had to study in their own time, they have done so and qualified. Many more want to train, and there are now parts of Britain in which there is a six-year waiting list for training as a paramedic, so great is the motivation of ambulance staff to acquire those skills.
It also says much about the commitment of the ambulance staff and not just of those who have acquired the skills of a paramedic that, in just about every station in Britain, staff have given freely of their time and energy to raise the funds to purchase the equipment that those paramedics need.
The Minister has responsibility for the Health Service in Scotland, and he will be aware that the Scottish ambulance service has 325 defibrillators. Every one of those has been bought by charitable money and from fund raising by the ambulance service—not one has been paid for out of Health Service funds. Every month, 800 people in Scotland are assisted by those defibrillators and resuscitated by them. If the Minister is serious about wanting more paramedics, he must accept that there must be more paramedical training throughout Britain, funded by the Government, and that, once trained, they will require the equipment necessary to do their job.
Although the skills of paramedics are first-class, what makes me rather uneasy about Ministers' constantly focusing on those skills is the sub-text—the skills of the paramedics are being praised to play down the skills of qualified ambulance staff. Four out of five ambulance staff are fully qualified and they are trained in life-saving skills, which they use daily. Every day in Scotland, there are likely to be 1,000 emergency cases, which will require those skills. In London, as well as in parts of Scotland, there are ambulance staff who spend their entire time responding to emergency calls.
The other week, I read an account of one of the ambulance crews called to the Clapham junction disaster. That crew spent three hours at Clapham junction, and on their way back to the station they were diverted to deal with a traffic accident caused by a motorist who had had a heart attack. Having taken the motorist to hospital, the crew were then sent from the hospital to deal with a woman in an advanced state of labour. When the crew arrived at her house, they were unable to move her and had to deliver her baby at home.
In a single shift of some five hours, without a break, those ambulance staff demonstrated skills in coping with patients who were haemorrhaging severely, they applied splints to those with broken limbs, they lifted patients with


multiple fractures, they applied resuscitation techniques to a person with a severe heart attack and, finally, they demonstrated skills in obstetrics by delivering, unaided and without proper theatre equipment, a child at home. Many doctors could not span those skills, and few would expect to do so within a single shift.
One of the consequences of the exacting demands on ambulance staff and the varied role that they must play in emergencies is stress. The mortality rate among ambulance staff is 10 per cent. higher than the average for manual workers. Few ambulance staff survive in work until the statutory age of retirement. Those who do so have an average period of survival in retirement of two and a half years only.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) referred to one of the contributing factors. The pulse and blood pressure of an ambulance crew on emergency duty will alternate rapidly several times in one shift—they will move from a resting mode to one of severe excitement. It has been measured and quantified by doctors who have accompanied ambulance staff throughout entire shifts on emergency calls. The Government know that, because, as I reminded Ministers in the last debate, they received a report in 1985 on stress among ambulance staff.

Mr. Bill Walker: Under a Labour Government.

Mr. Cook: No, there was not a Labour Government in 1985. I wish that there had been, but I am sorry to say that the Labour Government has receded further into history than 1985.
I reminded the Secretary of State of that report in our last debate in January. I was not prepared for his response, which appeared in a parliamentary answer on 2 February. He said:
Consideration of the final report of the working party on the problems of long-serving ambulance men and women has not yet been completed. I shall consider the question of publication when it has been."—[Official Report, 2 February 1990: Vol. 166 c. 420.]
That was a parliamentary answer from the same Secretary of State who, since he arrived at the Department of Health 18 months ago, has turned his madcap ideas about the Health Service into a White Paper, turned that White Paper into a Bill and now insists that the Bill will be implemented by April of next year. He has turned the entire Health Service upside down within three years, but, five years after getting a report of stress among ambulance staff, he has yet to decide whether to publish it.
One of the key recommendations in the report, which is widely known if not widely published, is that the age of retirement for ambulance staff should be reduced to the age of retirement of the other emergency services—above 55. I offer this free advice and consultation—I would not dream of charging for my consultation, unlike Conservative Members—that it would be a useful gesture of conciliation if the Government were to say that they were prepared to look sympathetically at reducing the retirement age of ambulance men. That would not be a concession to the dispute; it would not be inflationary or have knock-on effects on other Health Service workers. If the Government were to make that gesture, it would create a mood of conciliation in which negotiations would be more fruitful.
That gesture would show some of the flexibility that the Government keep demanding of the union side, but of which they have demonstrated precious little themselves.

However, it is partly because the staff have shown that flexibility and the public know the stress under which the staff work and the skills that they demonstrate when they work, that the public have given the ambulance staff, throughout the dispute, magnificent and unprecedented support.
The public have given them support, not just in the opinion polls, in which the ambulance staff are scoring better than Conservative Members, but tangible support, in cash. It is estimated that £4 million has been paid in individual donations during the past five months to the ambulance service. That is more than any party in this House could hope to raise with buckets in the streets. Perhaps the most depressing lesson of this dispute has been that that massive evidence of public support counts for nothing under the Government.
I presented a petition in the House on behalf of ambulance staff just before Christmas. It was signed by 4·5 million people—a record number of signatures on any petition presented to Parliament in its entire history. It was longer even that the petition represented by the Chartists in the 1830s. Since our last debate, I have received the official Government response to that petition. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland assured us that the Government support the ambulance staff.
The official Government response to the petition of 4·5 million people consists of a dozen lines that are a stale re-hash of the Government's position. The Secretary of State for Health sends longer letters than this to 15-year-old constituents who have written to him on the matter. The response contains not a word that the Government are in the least bit troubled about the evidence in the petition that they have not a shred of public support for their position.
What I find perplexing about the Government's attitude in response to this dispute is that, in fairness to them, the dispute demonstrates a new trade unionism for which the Government can claim a large part of the credit. The political victory of the Conservative party in 1979 confirmed for many in the trade union movement that errors had been made in the winter of discontent.
That is why, when the union leaders set out on this dispute, they set as their objective winning and retaining public support. It is the Conservative laws that have obliged trade unions to consult their members by ballot. In this dispute the unions have consulted the ambulance staff three separate times in individual ballots and on every occasion there has been a margin for action of 4:1.
The tragedy is that the new unionism and the aproach on the part of the trade union leaders has turned out to make no difference to Government's response. Confronted by trade unions, their response has proved as reliable and boringly predictable as Pavlov's dogs. The clearest contradiction is that they have repeatedly urged unions to contemplate no-strike agreements. For the past six months, they have held out against a negotiating bid by the staff side which, if one strips away the rhetoric, is effectively an offer to negotiate a no-strike pay formula. It is Ministers, not unions, who are resisting that opportunity.
The greatest damage that will be done by this dispute will not be the damage done to the emergency cases who should have been assisted earlier than they were, or even to those who have been unable to attend day centres in the past six months. The greatest damage that this dispute is likely to do is to kill that new trade unionism stone dead.
I can tell Ministers, if they have not worked it out for themselves, that the next time National Union of Public Employees finds itself in dispute with them, and its leaders turn to the members and say that the important thing is to win and retain public support, those leaders are likely to be reminded by their members that much good has it done the ambulance staff and that public support is an impotent weapon under a Goverment who understand only the arithmetic of power.
There is still time to stop this message going out, show that massive public opinion counts for something and settle this dispute in a way that is fair to ambulance staff and gives patients the formula that they need to prevent the service from being disrupted again. If Ministers and Conservative Members are unwise enough to ignore that opportunity, they may find that public opinion will take its revenge the very next time that it is confronted with a ballot box.

Mr. Robert Hughes: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I understand that, during my enforced absence, when I was dealing with constituency telephone calls, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said that I was in favour of local bargaining. That was certainly not the intention of my intervention. I intended to say that a look at the Whitley council system should at least consider arbitration.

Dame Jill Knight: In opening this debate, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) gave a good knockabout parliamentary performance. Although I listened carefully, I do not think that there were more than a couple of points on which I should like to take him up.

Mrs. Margaret Ewing: The introduction to this debate was serious and constructive, and my hon. Friends and I deeply resent the suggestion that it was knockabout.

Dame Jill Knight: The hon. Lady is perfectly entitled to her opinion and I am entitled to mine. I am elected to this House to give my opinion from time to time and that is what I have every intention of doing this afternoon.
Only a couple of points in the speech of the hon. Member for Govan require comment. First, he made great play of the Prime Minister being, as he described it, in the bunker. I suppose that he meant that she was being assailed and attacked from every side. I can inform the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was freely and democratically elected the Woman of the Year for the fourth year running by a poll on the "Today" programme. That shows the opinion of the public on the competence and admirable qualities of my right hon. Friend.
The hon. Member for Govan mentioned the Clegg report. Whatever one may say about that report there is no doubt that Professor Clegg gave far more attention to comparability than did the hon. Member for Govan. It is true that ambulance men were tacked on to NHS ancillary staff, but the hon. Member for Govan should not be allowed to get away with the accusation that the professor,

given the important job of producing a report on behalf of the Standing Commission on Pay Comparability, did a sloppy job.
A few moments ago I hurried out to get a copy of the report and read it once more. I understand that, during my absence, the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) mentioned paragraph 32, which states that the employers believed that there was inadequate comparability. However, he missed the point that the next paragraph gives evidence from the unions. Information was taken from unions, and it was considered. As with all such reports, the important element of the Clegg report was its conclusion, reached after careful consideration:
ambulancemen's conditions of service are broadly the same as for NHS ancillaries.
I am entitled, and it is my duty, to remind the House that, whatever the hon. Member for Livingston may say about his views having changed, when he was a member of the Labour Government, they set up the Clegg commission and accepted its report. Although I was in the House at the time, I cannot recall the hon. Gentleman strongly objecting to its conclusions.
Opposition Members and large numbers of members of the public have been informed about the actual offer for the ambulance men. Roger Poole's continual claim that ambulance men have been offered only 6·4 per cent. was repeated this afternoon. I felt almost as though I were in "Alice in Wonderland": Alice was listening to the Red Queen saying that 6·4 per cent. is exactly the same as 9 per cent. I shall not carry the analogy any further, but it is extraordinary to pretend that 6·4 per cent. is the same as 9 per cent. It could be so only if salaries were to increase over an 18-month period to 9 per cent. but the period was chopped off after one year. In that case, something funny might begin to happen. But it is not happening: the 9 per cent. is on offer and has been since April last year, and the public do not know that. Even some ambulance men do not know it.
Not only is the 9 per cent. backdated to 10 months ago, but 14 per cent. and 16·3 per cent. increases are on offer for paramedics, the latter figure being for those who work in London. By no stretch of the imagination can those figures be called 6·4 per cent. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who has left the Chamber—I did not think that he would stay long—tried to maintain that the sums were the same. They are not. This is a generous offer to people who deserve it.

Mrs. Fyfe: The hon. Lady is attempting to persuade the public that this is all a misunderstanding that has nothing to do with Government intransigence. If she is convinced that this is a fair offer, misunderstood by the public and ambulance men alike, why is she so reluctant to support the ambulance workers' demand for arbitration?

Dame Jill Knight: I am trying to remind ambulance workers what the figures are. The hon. Lady must understand that public opinion, to which great attention has recently been drawn, is based on wrong information. The public believe that the offer is 6·4 per cent.; it would be good if they realised that the true figures were 9 per cent., rising to 16·3 per cent.—a generous offer to people who deserve one.
Of course the ambulance workers do a good job and the public appreciate that—

Mr. Nigel Griffiths: rose—

Dame Jill Knight: I must get on; many hon. Members want to speak.
Nevertheless, it must be said that the service could be a great deal better. We should stop using ambulances to ferry round people for treatment, for instance. It has often appalled me to think of these expensive pieces of equipment hourly and daily doing a job that minibuses could do.
I believe that the Government are right to encourage staff to obtain higher medical qualifications by paying them more. It beats me why there should be such solid opposition from the unions when the Government want to pay highly qualified people more money. That happens with teachers, doctors, accountants and even British Rail staff—everyone gets more money if better qualified. It is as simple as that; there is nothing wrong with it. Opposition Members, who have supported the unions which have fought this principle all the way, seem to think it wrong to improve the ambulance service and to pay more money to those who are more highly qualified.
We all want the dispute settled; sick people and accident victims are in danger, and it is no use Opposition Members pretending otherwise. We know that people have been in danger and have not been attended to when they should have been taken to hospital. Whatever is said about public support, people are getting a little tired of collecting buckets. It upsets me that they are putting in money because they support the ambulance men but do not understand how much is on offer. It is rather sad to see old-age pensioners, perhaps living only on a pension, putting in money for people who earn much more than they do.
Salaries are rising. A leading ambulance man or woman now on £10,888 a year will receive £11,868. Paramedics' pay will rise to £12,368. Those finding it difficult to spare money for the collecting buckets may not know how much money is on offer. The wages of qualified, as distinct from leading, ambulance men earning more than £10,000 a year will rise to more than £11,000.
Are the collections quite honest? Who gives people permission to collect on the streets every day? If one wants to collect for the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, for children's charities, for the blind or for any other charity one must obtain a permit. There must be an agreement about places where collections are taken up, and details of the money must be audited. Opposition Members may think that this is funny, but it is not funny to con the public, and there is an element of conning in the collections. It is wrong that, day after day, collections should be taken up when, as far as I know, no permission has been given for them. There is certainly no supervision of the collection of the money or of how it is dished out. I am beginning to get letters about the matter, and I think other hon. Members will get letters, too.
It is nonsense to suppose that the Government can grant all the union demands. At one stage, the union agreed and recommended the 6·5 per cent. offer, but now it is asking for 11·4 per cent. That would have disastrous results everywhere and there would certainly be cuts in service. There would be an immediate public outcry if cuts had to be made to pay the 11 per cent. that the ambulance unions seek. It would also be an awful blow to the morale of people in the other parts of the National Health Service, nearly all of whom have settled at 6·4 to 6·8 per cent. What will they think if they see people receiving more money as

a result of a dispute and a great deal of trouble? I can imagine the demands that the Government would have to face.
It would be wrong to take the ambulance service out of the National Health Service. It would send out a dangerous signal if the House and the Government gave in to the demands, because it would be tantamount to saying that people who care for sick people or accident victims can have more money in their pockets by refusing that care. That is the terrible message that would go from here if we gave in.
We all want this worrying strike settled. Could a way ahead be sought by making training more quickly available? The hon. Member for Govan cited a case which purported to show that a man had waited a long time for training. If that is true, the man had a genuine grievance, which should be examined. I do not know whether it is true, but I am told that ambulance men have to pay for their courses. Perhaps there is a way ahead along that avenue, which may lead to negotiation. I should like training to be made available much more quickly and cheaply for ambulance men who are striving to better themselves.
What about opening a gate to local deals? We have seen the worth of the Northumbria experiment. There is no time to give details of it, but any hon. Member who has studied it knows that local effort in Northumbria has resulted in an excellent and much better service for patients. That is what we all want. Is there any possibility of agreeing a no-strike deal? Some of us would like to see the kind of deal that was worked out for the nurses because we never want to see another dispute like this one.
I warmly welcome the statement by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State that by, 1 October, the unions will be able to negotiate again, having had their 9 per cent. increase and back pay to April 1989. Perhaps, if people in the ambulance service looked at all the points that I have made, they could negotiate an even better deal in October. I urge the Government to stand firm but to make their case more widely known. They should also make quite clear what is on offer and the amount that the ambulance men currently receive. We must recognise that there are some things that we can do to smooth the progress of the negotiations so that the whole matter can be settled amicably and quickly.

Mr. Michael J. Martin: I have been a shop steward and a full-time union officer, and have been involved in many disputes, most of which the public did not even hear about. Some went on for a long time, while others were settled quickly. The ambulance dispute reminds me of a problem in the highlands some years ago. Cleaners there had their hours cut by the Highland regional council, whose members thought they were being smart and were dealing with a bunch of part-time ladies who could do without jobs.
Cleaners throughout the highlands went on strike a few months before the regional council elections. The councillors did not realise that the cleaners would get public sympathy, because they were from small villages and women took on those jobs because no one else would do them. In other areas of high unemployment, the women were doing such jobs not for pin money, but to keep body and soul together.
I was the union officer there at the time, and I saw a change in the attitude of the council members as soon as support for the cleaners started to appear. The councillors ran for cover and began to settle the dispute. However, it was too late; in the elections, many of them lost their seats on the council.
The Minister says that management are there to manage. If a general election was pending in the next six months I guarantee that the Government would lean on management and tell them to settle the dispute. We are not dealing with industrial management who have private resources at their disposal but with a management who depend on Government for the resources to pay the staff. It is nonsense for the Minister to sit back and say that it is up to management to manage. He knows quite well that, if he telephoned the managers, they would jump and settle the dispute if they knew that that was the will of the Government. Convervative Members suddenly think that the Whitley council is marvellous. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) let the cat out of the bag.

Mr. John Maxton: The hon. Lady has gone.

Mr. Martin: No, the hon. Lady is still in the Chamber; I give her credit for that. She let the cat out of the bag when she talked about local negotiations. In some highland areas, when someone is asked to work overtime, he is told, "Your overtime will be a fish supper, so that you will not go without a meal." That is the attitude in some rural areas. The worst thing that could happen is a return to local negotiations. Rural areas would suffer, while urban areas would have some bargaining power.
The Whitley council appeal procedure is cumbersome. Although there is nothing to take its place at present, that does not mean that the procedure should not come under scrutiny. The Minister misled the House when he said that the ambulance workers could easily use the Whitley council appeal procedure. He knows, even if other right hon. and hon. Members do not, that that procedure is so cumbersome that people sometimes have to wait two or three years for a hearing.
The first stage of such an appeal is that the full-time union officer representing the appellant must find three nominees from the union side, at least one of whom must not be a member of his union. Management must also nominate three persons to sit on the appeal panel. There is usually failure to agree at the first stage, because it is eachy-peachy on both sides. Further stages of the appeal follow, and at each, written evidence must be submitted before there can be another hearing. Let us not kid ourselves that a dispute that has already lasted six months will be quickly resolved using the Whitley appeal procedure. It could take another two years.
Right hon. and hon. Members may recall that the upgrading of nurses was argued about in the House 18 months ago, when nurses were told that any among them who were dissatisfied with their grading could use the Whitley appeal procedure. Only last week, I received a letter from a nurse telling me that she was involved in an appeal. Who are we conning?

Mrs. Margaret Ewing: There are hundreds more nurses in the same situation.

Mr. Martin: I take the hon. Lady's word for that. I am highlighting the fact that putting more disputes in the pipeline will only aggravate the situation.

Mr. Bill Walker: rose—

Mr. Martin: I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, because many other hon. and right hon. Members wish to speak, and it would be unfair of me to give way now.
Earlier, I mentioned a cleaners' dispute in which I was involved as a full-time union officer, and the support that it received from the public. When the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) mentioned the bucket collections that are made by ambulance workers, she used, I believe, the word "con". I do not think that she really meant that. In any event, I can tell the hon. Lady that any collection that is taken by trade union members is well scrutinised and well recorded. No one gets away with any kind of con. It is dishonourable for any Member of Parliament to say that men and women wearing the uniform of one of the finest services in this country would try to con the public.
In Glasgow, men and women, and even young boys and girls, do not walk past collection buckets without making a donation. My own daughter is not a political activist, but she tells me that, if she passes such a collection twice during her lunch hour, she will make a donation on both occasions. It is not so much the amount of money that is given as the gesture of public support that matters.
There are those who argue that the public are uneducated or ill-informed, but if their hearts are behind the ambulance workers, as they are, the Government will have a tough job of resolving the matter—particularly if they take the attitude, "We'll leave it to management"; or, with a nod, and a wink to management, "Let them sit it out. They'll not get a ha'penny. Your job will be on the line if you settle this dispute."
In London, many minicab drivers receive radio calls to turn up at St. Thomas's hospital and at other hospitals. Because they are paid only a set fee, they do not respond, saying, "We don't want to know." That is because the fare will be an elderly patient whom they will have to help into their cab—which is not designed for a person suffering from arthritis or some other severe ailment. On arriving at the patient's destination, he or she must be taken to the door of their home, the key found, and the door unlocked. I would hope that nine out of 10 cab drivers are decent enough to help an elderly person to and from hospital—but the fact remains that, if minicab drivers can avoid taking such fares, they gladly do so.
It is shameful that a Government who claim to care for the people allow the elderly to be humiliated by making them use minicabs to travel to and from therapy. The same Government would not allow the Army to do such a bad job as to put our nation at peril from an intruder. The Government have a duty to settle the dispute. The Minister may think that it will be only a couple of months before ambulance staff are back at work, but as a former trade union officer, I can tell him that I have known of disputes on the records of the Trades Union Congress disputes committee that lasted for one and a half or two years.

Dame Jill Knight: The miners went back in the end.

Mr. Martin: The trouble with the hon. Member for Edgbaston is that she knows nothing about industrial


relations. The miners might have gone back, but they brought about the downfall of the Tory Government. She had better remember that.

Mrs. Teresa Gorman: The miners also brought down the Labour Government.

Mr. Martin: I do not recall the miners bringing about the downfall of the Labour Government. I can recall the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) saying in this House, "It's me or the miners." The people of this country chose the miners. In any event, I do not intend to be sidetracked by the hon. Member for Edgbaston. I was merely emphasising that, if the Government intend to take the same attitude as the hon. Member for Edgbaston—that, as the miners went back to work, so will the ambulance workers—I remind them that there are on record disputes that lasted years. Given the Government's attitude, the ambulance dispute also will last years. The Government owe it to the country to get the ambulance men back to work.

Mr. Bill Walker: The speech to which we have just listened can be succinctly summed up by the words, "Scrap Whitley." I am sure that that is what the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) was telling the House. That may be what he and others want; it is certainly the cornerstone of the dispute.
The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook)—who is not in his place, but I understand why—has dissociated himself from the previous Labour Government. That come as no surprise, because I remember how he disagreed with the previous Labour Government over devolution. But now, in the hope of getting a seat on the Treasury Bench, the hon. Gentleman is prepared to support their policy.
In his introduction, which I thought flippant and frivolous, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) indulged in all sorts of sideswipes about people whom he described as "organ grinders". The hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) is in her place to represent the Scottish National party. I remind her that members of the SNP came to the House and said categorically that they would not take part in or assist with any matters affecting England. But now we have the Govan edict—that the SNP will do what the hon. Member for Govan wants to do, any time, anywhere. That is no surprise, because the SNP has been described by its own supporters as a party with no policies, or policies for everything, and different policies for everywhere. We have seen an example of that today.
The hon. Member for Govan complained that the Minister opening the debate was a Scottish Minister. I can just hear the same fellow complaining that the Minister was English. All Opposition Members, other than the nationalists, know and understand that.
I shall now deal with the essence of the debate. The hon. Member for Govan—[HON. MEMBERS: "Look at him."] Have a good look, because it is a good kilt. I am proud to wear it because it is the Air Force kilt, and it is the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain this year. On Wednesday there will be Royal Air Force airmen in the House and that is why I am wearing it. Madam Deputy Speaker, I am responding to some of the uninformed comments of the Opposition.
The essence of this dispute is that the ambulance men have said that they do not accept Whitley rules. In the previous speech we heard one of the reasons why. I have news for the hon. Member for Springburn. I have some years' experience as a Whitley negotiator—[HON. MEMBERS: "You?"] Yes. I spent six and a half years as a Whitley negotiator, so I know something of the problems. I certainly endorse the comments of the hon. Member for Springburn about the delays in the appeal procedure. That is clearly part of the problem. But although the appeals procedure is slow—that has been proven down the years—it is often effective and it has produced good answers in the end. So should we scrap Whitley?
Opposition Members cannot call for one group which is covered by the Whitley umbrella to have separate arbitration. One group cannot operate differently from the rest, and the hon. Member for Springburn knows that as well as I do. If we allow one group of workers to go to arbitration because they have gone on strike, we must allow all groups to go to arbitration. There is no way in between. I see the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) asserting that there is a way in between. That may be, but the proposal that has been put forward is, "We want arbitration." We must consider whether all the Whitley procedures—the way that negotiations are conducted and carried out—should be changed.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health, will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the ambulance men have been given an offer that would take them through until the end of September. They have been told that, on 1 October 1990, they can negotiate for new structures and conditions—they have been told that the 1986 agreement is up for alteration.
The Government have said that they are agreeable to the management's offer. If that is so, all the other groups that have negotiated under the Whitley rules—more than 90 per cent., or the bulk, of the people in the Health Service have agreed—could properly say, "If there is going to be a change of structure for one group, perhaps it should be considered for all groups."
Clegg studied the problems in the light of the terrible industrial difficulties during the closing stages of the previous Labour government. A number of hon. Members have commented on the Clegg report. The important thing that was highlighted by Clegg, who was acting as the referee—one can criticise the referee, as a certain heavyweight boxer has recently—was that the ambulance service should not be considered part of the emergency services. If things have changed—there is a possibility that they have—and we are in a new era, with different arguments being put forward, perhaps there is a need for a complete review and an in-depth study of the issues. That could be a way to resolve the problem.
I have never been in favour of trying to erect imaginary structures that are expected to produce answers with which we can all live, because usually a solution will present more problems the next time there is negotiation. That has been my experience, and I am sure it is true for many other people who have worked in industrial relations on both sides of the negotiating fence.
I place on record my gratitude and thanks to the ambulance men in Scotland who have worked to the rules. I particularly thank those ambulance staff from north Tayside who have been carrying out normal duties, as that is much appreciated by my constituents.

Mr. McAllion: Does the hon. Gentleman support the Tory councillors in Tayside who voted unanimously with councillors from other parties to set up an emergency service through the regional council?

Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. It was not voted on. The position—[Laughter.] It did not get voted on. There was no division. The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) must understand that Tayside region Conservative councillors took the view that the ambulance service has nothing whatever to do with local government, and I agree with them. They do not think that they have any accountability; it is not their locus, so they should not debate or vote on it. My answer is yes, I support them.
One must understand that the question to be resolved is whether employers should succumb to one group because they are working to rule and carrying out industrial action, or whether they should support the more than 90 per cent. of workers who have settled. Any sensible employer would support workers who have settled.
My advice to the ambulance men is not to listen to voices from the Opposition Benches. Since 1979, they have been looking for a union or any cause that could somehow discomfort the Government, or put them in a bad light. They tried it with the miners and with other workers. The fact of the matter is—[Laughter.] The hon. Member for Moray may find this funny, but it is too serious a matter for joking. It is too important for the future of the ambulance men, the ambulance service and for patients, who are suffering at present. This is not a flippant or frivolous matter. Nothing to do with wages is ever flippant or frivolous to the people involved, whether they are the people who have to pay or those who hope to be paid.
We are discussing whether Whitley has a future. I warn management very seriously that, if they succumb to blackmail—that is what industrial action is—they will put everything else that works at risk. Whitley is at risk. There are proposals to change Whitley and to say—as I understand the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North does—that there should be some form of arbitration service, and not necessarily the present appeals procedure. I accept that that procedure is slow and cumbersome, but in my experience it has worked.
When I negotiated for people, they were always delighted when we appealed and were successful, even though it took some time. The pay was always backdated, which is a big advantage of working in the public service as opposed to outside it, where that system does not normally apply. That is why one can afford to be a little slower in reaching decisions in the public service.
This is a serious matter of principle, and the principle is whether Whitley, and the interests of the 90 per cent. of Health Service workers who have settled, are worth defending. If we succumb to blackmail supported by Opposition Members, who are engaged in political opportunism—

Mr. Ernie Ross: The hon. Gentleman seems to think that the dispute is the result of a plot by Opposition Members. Every Saturday, I stand with the ambulance men in the city square in Dundee, and there is no lack of people going about their business—not people wearing Labour party, SNP or SLD stickers but ordinary people, from the very young to the very old—who put money into the ambulance men's buckets. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that is?

Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman is old enough to remember other similar disputes, in which—

Mr. Ross: I do not.

Mr. Walker: In that case, I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, who cannot be as old as I thought he was. As soon as a dispute is settled, feelings evaporate and views and attitudes change.
The conspiracy is not one by the ambulance men, some of whom are trying to deal with a genuine grievance. They are going about it wrongly, but that is a different matter. In a number of instances they have a case for saying that conditions should be altered. That is not unusual; very few groups could not make such a case. The important point is that the Opposition regard the dispute as an opportunity. They are engaged in political opportunism. It is among Opposition Members that we find the intrigue and political machinations. I am not blaming the ambulance men, although they are mistaken in their methods and although they will live to regret the scrapping of Whitley. That is the important point and I want it on record.

Mr. Robert Hughes: The hon. Gentleman should be extremely careful not to put words into other people's mouths. By saying that there is a case for looking at the Whitley council procedures and possibly bringing in arbitration as an alternative to a review procedure, we are not saying that Whitley should be scrapped. Let us be perfectly clear about that. No one says, "Scrap Whitley." We are merely saying that the Government should look at Whitley and improve it rather than allow it to fall into disrepute.

Mr. Walker: The captain of the Titanic probably did not want to sink the Titanic, but people's actions have an effect—[Laughter.] Hon. Members should listen carefully. The other 90-odd per cent. of staff who settled under Whitley take the view that the system works, but Whitley may be killed off by the very people who should be making it work. Hon. Members know that the machinery depends on the active involvement of both sides to make it work. If one group—the ambulance men—says no to Whitley and decides to pursue its claim in a different way, the other 96 per cent. of staff may be tempted to do the same, and that would amount to scrapping Whitley.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: In recent months, Wales has faced similar problems to those confronting Scotland and England. We are grateful to the Scottish National party for introducing the debate and to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) for his introductory remarks. I take issue with the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) about the need for the Opposition to rattle round looking for causes to do in the Government. The Government are quite capable of doing incredible damage to themselves, as the poll tax and the ambulance dispute has proved.
I thank ambulance workers in my constituency, in Wales and in general for the tremendous work that they do and for the dignity and restraint with which they have conducted themselves in the recent most difficult weeks. As hon. Members have said, they command overwhelming support in the community. A BBC poll undertaken in Wales showed that 100 per cent. of those asked supported


the ambulance workers. Only two people who were asked to sign a petition in my constituency, which carried 3,000 signatures, refused to do so.
It is disgraceful that the dispute should have been drawn out for so long, when the Government could easily have found a way of reaching a settlement. The size of the ambulance workers' claim is quite reasonable. If hon. Members are happy to accept an annual salary increase in excess of 10 per cent., how can we say that the ambulance workers do not deserve a similar increase? What measuring rod can we use?
The method of pursuing the claim has also been reasonable by and large, although today is a sad day in Wales because, in South Glamorgan, we have seen what amounts to a lockout; that represents a serious aggravation of the dispute, which the ambulance workers did not want. It is interesting to note that, this weekend, in the neighbouring county of Gwent, the ambulance manager passed control of the service to the ambulance workers themselves. That was an intriguing step forward, and reflects the sense of responsibility that the management felt the ambulance workers showed towards their work. I believe that that is generally so.
I have taken the trouble to go round all three ambulance stations in my constituency—in Caernarfon, Pwllheli and Porth-madog—and I am deeply impressed by the sense of responsibility shown by the men and by the Transport and General Workers Union and its leadership. They have tried to stick to the rules laid down centrally by the unions, to ensure that those who could be adversely affected by industrial action are protected, and that the dispute does not endanger life and limb.
I have noted the long hours that the ambulance workers often have to work. I have known some to work an all-day shift and then go on to all-night standby, at a rate of pay of £4 per full standby shift. That rate of remuneration compares badly with those of electricity and gas workers on standby work. Ambulance men may work as long as 24 hours on the trot; and one can well imagine the strain that that places on them.
What can be the Government's motive for prolonging the dispute? It cannot be to establish 9 per cent. over 18 months as the norm, given what is happening in industry—at Ford and elsewhere. It is widely believed among ambulance workers that there is an attempt to use the dispute to split their work into two, with a professional upgraded staff for the paramedical part of the work and a taxi-driver-type service for the other part, which is eventually to be privatised. It would be a woeful state of affairs if the Government used the dispute to pursue their own dogma and to make one more stride towards privatisation.
Perhaps some of the services in inner-city areas can be undertaken by something less than the full crew, and I understand that such a system has been experimented with in some cities. But in rural areas such as mine, it is not practical or possible to downgrade the service into a taxi-type service. Those areas need full-time professionals, because some parts of my constituency are 50 miles from the hospital to which the ambulance workers must take emergency cases. In my county, the average time for taking people to hospital is one hour, compared with seven minutes in some city areas. One cannot have a blanket approach, which I fear the Government have.
Ambulance workers and emergency workers, who turn out to all sorts of emergencies—not just medical

emergencies. When the fire engines are called out, the ambulances are also called out, and the ambulance workers are often there first. They are often called out in police emergencies, too. If the fire service is entitled to index-linked pay, it is ridiculous that the pay of ambulance workers should not be index-linked. There should at least be parity of approach, if not parity in pay scales.
It is important that training should be adequate. It would not be right to pay a higher rate to only a limited number of highly trained staff if training is not made available to the overwhelming majority. As the dispute seems to be escalating, I am also worried about ambulance cover in rural counties, especially if we have to rely on the Army. I understand that six Army ambulances would be available to cover the whole of Gwynedd. That would be impossible.
I believe that there is a solution to the problem. 'We should lay on one side for a moment the percentage increase for this year and consider other aspects. The Government ought to say that they are prepared to allow next year's pay award to go to arbitration. They ought to accept that decision and be prepared to index-link it to average industrial wages. The Government should not use such a settlement as a basis for privatisation. The Government ought to agree to review the equipment that is available to ambulance workers—a subject that causes them considerable worry.
If the Government adopted such an approach, I believe that there could be a settlement, based on a figure for this year which the Government could accept. We must find a way out of this dispute. An old constituent of mine, Wil Napoleon, who is dead now, had a very good dictum: "Never start a fight in a pub without a back door." I suspect that the Government have started a fight in a pub without a back door, and that they will have to pay the price.

Sir Hector Monro: I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), and to his suggestions about how to resolve the dispute. It is important to hold negotiations as soon as possible without preconditions. I was a Health Minister in the early 1970s. There was a similar strike to this one in 1972–73, when we had to introduce civilian volunteer drivers. Fortunately, that dispute was resolved far more quickly than this one.
I pay tribute,as did the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars), to the ambulance men in my constituency, who provided such effective help at the time of the Lockerbie disaster. They have to deal with many serious accidents on the A74. They turn out rapidly in such emergencies. I pay great tribute to them.
The National Health Service and the unions agreed a negotiating structure in 1986. They decided to proceed under the Whitley procedure by means of freely agreed negotiations. There was no place for arbitration in the 1986 agreement. Furthermore, arbitration is not an option in other parts of the National Health Service. We cannot change the rules of the game.
In May 1989, management and unions reached agreement on 6·5 per cent. The unions put that agreement to their members on 20 June, but it was rejected. After that, the dispute began. On 4 December 1989, the National Health Service offered 9 per cent., backdated to 1 April


1989 and running through to September 1990. Leading ambulance men would have an increase of about £1,000 over 12 months and ambulance men and women would receive an additional £650, while those who are trained as paramedics would receive an additional £500. The unions responded with an 11 per cent. demand, with pay to be linked to police and fire service pay.
The Labour party set out the terms of reference of the Clegg inquiry. The unions' demand was linked to the Clegg report, but Clegg said that there should be no link between the fire service, the police and the National Health Service.
The 1986 agreement ought to be reviewed. There should be no preconditions. I do not understand why the unions insist on preconditions and will not return to the negotiating table. A 9 per cent. offer is on the table. To offer to renegotiate the structure without preconditions seems to me to be reasonable. A restructuring of the pay system, including Whitley and arbitration, would be on the table. Whether agreement would eventually be reached about that is another matter.
The ambulance men and the unions would, if they were wise, start afresh and try to resolve the problem during the next few months. They have already been offered 9 per cent., backdated to April 1989. That is a reasonable offer. The unions ought to get round the table with the National Health Service and resolve the problem between now and September 1990. Between now and September, 9 per cent. would be paid to the ambulance men. If the unions took that course, it could lead to much happier times for ambulance men and women.

Mr. Thomas McAvoy: The main reason for this claim is to retain the value of ambulance men's earnings. The unions have said that a pay mechanism, such as a pay review body, would be given serious and constructive consideration. Alternatively, the Government could propose a new pay mechanism. The unions have been flexible.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) referred to five key parts of the union's case. They have said that they are willing to drop those demands if that would help to solve the dispute. The unions are ready to negotiate on both the pay claim of 11·14 per cent. and the nature of the pay formula. Flexibility is there. The Government ought to respond.
The emergency work of ambulance crews has been well illustrated. During the last few days, newspaper articles have suggested that the unions are almost defeated. I do not know whether those articles have been influenced by Government sources. If this dispute ends in defeat for the ambulance workers, working practices will be seriously affected.
A disgraceful attack on Scottish ambulance staff was instigated by Mr. Wilby, the director of the Scottish ambulance service. He called into question the ambulance workers' commitment to the service and to their professional duties. How he thinks that that will contribute to future harmony in the Scottish ambulance service I do not know. Perhaps he got carried away by conducting the Government's political fight on their behalf. No doubt he will be rewarded with a mention in

either the new year's or the birthday honours list. When that happens, clearly it will be a reward for political service.
The position in Scotland contrasts with that in Gwent, where common sense prevails and obviously the priority of the management in charge of the ambulance service is public service instead of defending the Government's battle ramparts. There should be no totem poles, as the Government have sufficient strength. To their credit, many Conservative Members, particularly the hon. Members for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and for Harlow (Mr. Hayes), have tried to get the Government to move, but the Government's position seems to echo the miners' strike. They are trying to show their strength and be macho, but true strength is the ability to be flexible and to negotiate. The Government should show their strength by negotiating with the ambulance workers.

Mrs. Margaret Ewing: I intend to be brief in summing up, first because the case is self-evident and has already been put more than adequately by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars), the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and hon. Members from other Opposition parties. Secondly, I should not like to give the Minister the excuse that he could not reply to all the points that have been raised because he ran out of time before we forced the issue to a Division. Therefore, I shall ask the Minister some basic questions.
Throughout the debate, we have heard that it is costing £20 million-plus to subsidise alternative forms of support to replace the ambulance crews. Will the Minister give us a straight answer as to who is paying that money? Exactly where is it coming from? It has been mentioned that, were we to spend £10 million, which is all that it would take to settle the dispute, we should open the floodgates. I should be interested if the Minister could name any individual group that has ever used the emergency services as leverage to argue its own case in industrial discussions about wages. The entire industrial community recognises that the emergency services are different, and there is widespread support from all working people for the settlement of the dispute. I suspect that no one would try to use it as a lever.
As we are referring to the emergency services, perhaps the Minister will be more forthcoming about dealing with the letter of 22 August 1978 from the private office of the then Leader of the Opposition than the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland was on "Left, Right and Centre" on Friday night, when his subdued and humble demeanour made me wonder how many charm schools he had visited recently. That letter was signed by Matthew Parris on behalf of the then Leader of the Opposition. It stated:
In all the comments she made during the Firemen's strike, Mrs. Thatcher linked her remarks not just to the firemen but to what she, and you, call Emergency Services. All three deserve to have their pay negotiations put outside the arena of industrial dispute by being given firm and automatic linkage to national price or wage rises.
Will the Minister comment on that and tell us why the Conservative party seems to have changed its mind about the Clegg report? Conservative Members use it in their defence when we call for arbitration, but I was in the House in the 1970s when the Clegg report was published and the Conservative Opposition were very much against it. What has made the Conservatives change their minds in the intervening 10 years? Does the Minister accept that the report has been discredited in so far as it affects the


ambulance men, because it is quite clear that there was no real analysis of their situation then, and there is now a strong argument for a much better analysis?
I should like to know exactly what the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland meant when he said that the current offer would hold good until October. He led us a merry dance round various statistics, mentioning 9 per cent., 6 per cent., 6·4 per cent., 6·5 per cent., 18 months, 12 months and the rest. But when he said that the offer would hold good until October, it was not clear whether it would hold good after October, and that seems a strange way of offering the ambulance workers a negotiating base. If the Government are not guaranteeing the ambulance men the continuation of their wage increase after October, surely there is little point in them even considering negotiation.
The hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) said that negotiations should be reopened without preconditions, but the Government have placed preconditions on the ambulance staff in their negotiations because they are saying that there will be no pay review and no further increase forthcoming. Those are very tight preconditions for the Government to place on the ambulance staff, and I ask the Government to rescind them.
The Minister referred to investment. According to a press release from the Scottish Office this month, it amounts to some £4·7 million in Scotland. Of course, everyone welcomes investment in the ambulance service. It was disingenuous of the Minister to say that those of us who support the ambulance staff do not want such investment in the ambulance service. No one knows better than the ambulance staff how desperately that investment is needed. In my constituency, and I am sure in the constituencies of many other hon. Members representing rural areas, there is not a single fete, show or bazaar during the summer months where the ambulance men do not have an ambulance on display—and available for use in the event of an emergency—to raise funds to provide equipment to improve the service to the local community. When we talk about improving health provision and the need for investment, the Minister should note that the ambulance men have done a great deal to improve the service through their own voluntary efforts to buy vital equipment such as defibrillators.
I studied history, and one of my favourite books is "1066 and All That". Others who have studied history will know it well. One part of that book mentioned the arrival of what was known as "the face" and its implications for historical developments. Wars were fought over the face and deaths were caused by the face. It seems to me that the Government are more intent on saving their face than on resolving the ambulance dispute.
If ambulance staff are at the point of ceasing to observe the TUC guidelines, that must mean that they are being forced into total despair, anger and frustration at Government action. No Opposition Member wants the TUC guidelines to be broken, nor do the vast majority of the ambulance staff, but the frustration is being caused by the growing chasm between the Government, and the ambulance staff and the public. If the Government were to accept our motion, they would show a genuine commitment to resolving the dispute, which we all want to be resolved.

Mrs. Fyfe: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does the House have the right to demand to know whether

the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland have a reasonable excuse for absenting themselves for the entire debate?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Roger Freeman): As the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) rightly reminded the House, we have debated the subject a number of times. The best contribution that I can make to this short debate is to shed further light on Government policy on five particular points. I approach those five issues in a constructive and, I hope, enlightening fashion that will help to carry the debate further. I appreciate that a number of hon. Gentlemen have spoken with great passion and a sense of loyalty to their union colleagues and to the issues involved, but it seems to me that I can best serve the debate by answering the five key points that have arisen.
First, the hon. Member for Livingston implied that in some way we undervalued the contribution of ambulance men and women. That is not the case. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), who has responsibility for health in Scotland, said, we all value greatly the role of ambulance men and women. Although I accept the very strong public sympathy for ambulance men and women and the understanding of their role, there is a difference between accepting that public sympathy and stressing that the Government have responsibility for settling public sector pay, however important a particular sector may be. It is not inconsistent for me to say that although the Government understand that public sympathy, we have a sense of responsibility.
The hon. Member for Livingston asked me specifically about retirement and stress. He was right to make that point. Unquestionably some ambulance men and women suffer great stress, particularly when they leave a horrific road traffic accident to deal with another rostered duty. In due course we will consider the reports on this issue. Although it is true that policemen retire earlier than ambulance men, I must stress that the police pay twice as much superannuation contributions as ambulance men and women to achieve earlier retirement. Nevertheless, the hon. Member for Livingston was right to raise the issue, and we shall consider it in due course.
The second of the five main topics to arise in the debate was cost. The hon. Member for Livingston said that we could have settled the dispute some months ago, and that the dispute is inconsequential. He said that the cost of the police and Army services helping to provide emergency cover in certain areas has amounted to about £20 million. I do not dissociate myself from that figure, although it is an estimate and not all the bills have come in yet. In response to the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing), I can state that those costs will be paid by the National Health Service—by the appropriate ambulance authorities.
We are considering an additional cost because, although there may be some savings from staff who have absented themselves or are on lower pay, there will still be a burden. We cannot set the costs of the services provided by the police and the Army against the cost of increasing the pay of ambulance men and women in one year, because the cost recurs. The implications of agreeing to the union's demands for a pay review body or, failing that, binding


arbitration, would be much more expensive for the ambulance service. We must remember that the ambulance service costs about £200 million a year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) referred to the 390,000 Whitley staff who would wish to share in any pay review body, mechanism or binding arbitration. The NHS pay bill is about £13 billion. In the debate before Christmas, the hon. Member for Livingston said that it was Labour party policy to agree to a pay formula. I hope that he has cleared that with his right hon. Friends the shadow Chancellor and the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, because such a pay formula would have significant financial implications for the Health Service and for public sector pay.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) asked a specific question about the offer that is on the table. That offer is backdated to 1 April, to increase the rate of pay by 9 per cent. per annum over an 18-month period. From 1 October this year, fresh negotiations on the further increase in pay will have to take place. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster reminded the House, rightly, that the increase is more than 9 per cent. in London—12 per cent.—and that we are putting on the table £500 per annum to increase pay for trained paramedics. That represents an extra £900 in cash for ambulance men and women over the 12 months beginning 1 April.
The third main point to arise from the debate relates to emergency and non-emergency work about which the hon. Member for Livingston asked specific questions. All hon. Members would agree that some parts of the ambulance service are non-emergency in nature; there can be no dispute about that. I can give the hon. Member for Livingston the figures. In terms of the number of patients carried, 10 per cent. of the activity of the ambulance service is emergency work, to which should be added another 5 per cent. for doctors' urgent cases. That means that 15 per cent. of ambulance service activities involves emergency work. That figure is not dissimilar to the one that the hon. Member for Livingston quoted for York.
We are in danger of confusing functions with the argument that we must have a full roster of ambulance men and women on which to draw in the event of an emergency. I suggest that some functions of the ambulance service are not of an emergency nature and can be contracted out. The experience in Northumbria and Wiltshire supports that contention.

Mrs. Gorman: Will my hon. Friend confirm now or later the figures that I heard in a BBC broadcast to the effect that the average cost of a non-emergency journey is £40 per person? If that is correct, it must be cheaper to contract such work out.

Mr. Freeman: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the fact that non-emergency functions, when contracted out, can be cheaper. We are not being prescriptive, and it is for the various ambulance authorities to decide which part of the service to contract out and when. However, my hon. Friend was correct—

Mr. Wigley: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Freeman: No. I have only three minutes left and two points with which to deal, and one of those points was made by the hon. Gentleman himself.
The fourth point to arise from the debate concerns training and equipment to which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) referred. The hon. Member for Livingston mentioned 14,000 qualified ambulance men. Of those, only 2,000 are fully qualified paramedics. My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston wanted to know whether those 2,000 qualified staff have to pay for that additional training. They do not.
We need to increase the proportion of ambulance men and women who are qualified paramedics. We want one paramedic in each emergency ambulance. Paramedics are qualified to provide drips, to unblock airways and to control heartbeats. We have only 2,000 ambulance men and women who are so qualified. I agree with the hon. Member for Livingston that we need to devote additional resources to training and equipment in the ambulance service. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland referred to steps that have already been taken to that end in Scotland. I confirm that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health takes that issue very seriously. Over the coming months, we will be concentrating on how to improve training and the resources devoted to equipment in the Health Service.
On national pay, we want greater local flexibility which, in some cases, means higher pay, paid for by productivity in the ambulance service. That should be possible. That is the correct route further to reward ambulance men and women.
Mr. Poole knows that this dispute, including the pay review body, cannot be won on his terms. Surely both sides should sit down, without rancour or loss of face, but with common sense and good grace, and solve the dispute.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 207, Noes 276.

Division No. 83]
[6.59 pm


AYES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)


Allen, Graham
Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)


Anderson, Donald
Campbell-Savours, D. N.


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Canavan, Dennis


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Cartwright, John


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Clark, Dr David (S Shields)


Ashton, Joe
Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)


Banks, Tony (Newham NW)
Clay, Bob


Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Clelland, David


Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)
Clwyd, Mrs Ann


Barron, Kevin
Cohen, Harry


Battle, John
Cook, Robin (Livingston)


Beckett, Margaret
Corbett, Robin


Beith, A. J.
Corbyn, Jeremy


Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n &amp; R'dish)
Cox, Tom


Bermingham, Gerald
Cryer, Bob


Bidwell, Sydney
Cummings, John


Blair, Tony
Cunliffe, Lawrence


Blunkett, David
Dalyell, Tam


Boateng, Paul
Darling, Alistair


Boyes, Roland
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)


Bradley, Keith
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)


Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)
Dewar, Donald


Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)
Dixon, Don


Buchan, Norman
Dobson, Frank


Buckley, George J.
Doran, Frank


Caborn, Richard
Douglas, Dick


Callaghan, Jim
Duffy, A. E. P.






Dunnachie, Jimmy
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth
Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)


Eastham, Ken
Martlew, Eric


Evans, John (St Helens N)
Maxton, John


Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)
Meacher, Michael


Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)
Meale, Alan


Fatchett, Derek
Michael, Alun


Faulds, Andrew
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)


Fearn, Ronald
Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)


Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Moonie, Dr Lewis


Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)
Morgan, Rhodri


Fisher, Mark
Morley, Elliot


Flannery, Martin
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)


Flynn, Paul
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Mullin, Chris


Foster, Derek
Murphy, Paul


Fraser, John
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon


Fyfe, Maria
O'Neill, Martin


Garrett, John (Norwich South)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)
Patchett, Terry


George, Bruce
Pendry, Tom


Godman, Dr Norman A.
Pike, Peter L.


Golding, Mrs Llin
Powell, Ray (Ogmore)


Gordon, Mildred
Prescott, John


Gould, Bryan
Primarolo, Dawn


Graham, Thomas
Quin, Ms Joyce


Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Radice, Giles


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Randall, Stuart


Hardy, Peter
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn


Harman, Ms Harriet
Richardson, Jo


Haynes, Frank
Robertson, George


Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Robinson, Geoffrey


Heffer, Eric S.
Rogers, Allan


Henderson, Doug
Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)


Hinchliffe, David
Rowlands, Ted


Hogg, N. (C'nauld &amp; Kilsyth)
Ruddock, Joan


Home Robertson, John
Salmond, Alex


Hood, Jimmy
Sedgemore, Brian


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Sheerman, Barry


Howells, Geraint
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert


Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Hughes, John (Coventry NE)
Short, Clare


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Sillars, Jim


Hughes, Roy (Newport E)
Skinner, Dennis


Hughes, Simon (Southwark)
Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)


Illsley, Eric
Smith, C. (Isl'ton &amp; F'bury)


Ingram, Adam
Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk'ds E)


Janner, Greville
Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)


Jones, Barry (Alyn &amp; Deeside)
Soley, Clive


Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)
Spearing, Nigel


Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)
Steel, Rt Hon Sir David


Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Steinberg, Gerry


Kennedy, Charles
Stott, Roger


Kilfedder, James
Strang, Gavin


Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil
Straw, Jack


Kirkwood, Archy
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)


Lambie, David
Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis


Lamond, James
Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)


Leadbitter, Ted
Turner, Dennis


Leighton, Ron
Vaz, Keith


Lestor, Joan (Eccles)
Wallace, James


Lewis, Terry
Walley, Joan


Litherland, Robert
Warden, Gareth (Gower)


Livsey, Richard
Wareing, Robert N.


Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)
Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)


Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Williams, Rt Hon Alan


McAllion, John
Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)


McAvoy, Thomas
Wilson, Brian


McFall, John
Winnick, David


McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)
Wise, Mrs Audrey


McLeish, Henry
Worthington, Tony


Maclennan, Robert
Young, David (Bolton SE)


McNamara, Kevin



McWilliam, John
Tellers for the Ayes:


Madden, Max
Mr. Andrew Welsh and Mr. Daffydd Wigley.


Marek, Dr John



Marshall, David (Shettleston)






NOES


Adley, Robert
Gale, Roger


Aitken, Jonathan
Gardiner, George


Alexander, Richard
Garel-Jones, Tristan


Alison, Rt Hon Michael
Gill, Christopher


Amess, David
Glyn, Dr Sir Alan


Arbuthnot, James
Goodhart, Sir Philip


Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Goodlad, Alastair


Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)
Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles


Atkins, Robert
Gorman, Mrs Teresa


Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)
Gow, Ian


Banks, Robert (Harrogate)
Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Greenway, John (Ryedale)


Bellingham, Henry
Gregory, Conal


Bendall, Vivian
Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')


Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Grist, Ian


Benyon, W.
Ground, Patrick


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Hague, William


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)


Boswell, Tim
Hanley, Jeremy


Bottomley, Peter
Hannam, John


Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')


Bowis, John
Harris, David


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Haselhurst, Alan


Brazier, Julian
Hayes, Jerry


Bright, Graham
Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney


Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Cl't's)
Hayward, Robert


Browne, John (Winchester)
Heathcoat-Amory, David


Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael


Buck, Sir Antony
Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)


Burns, Simon
Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)


Burt, Alistair
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.


Butcher, John
Hill, James


Butler, Chris
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)


Butterfill, John
Hordern, Sir Peter


Carlisle, John, (Luton N)
Howard, Rt Hon Michael


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)


Carrington, Matthew
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Carttiss, Michael
Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)


Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Chapman, Sydney
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)


Churchill, Mr
Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)


Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)
Hunter, Andrew


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Irvine, Michael


Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Jack, Michael


Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)
Janman, Tim


Colvin, Michael
Jessel, Toby


Conway, Derek
Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey


Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)
Jones, Robert B (Herts W)


Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael


Couchman, James
Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine


Critchley, Julian
Key, Robert


Currie, Mrs Edwina
King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)


Davies, Q. (Stamf'd &amp; Spald'g)
King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwatar)


Day, Stephen
Kirkhope, Timothy


Devlin, Tim
Knapman, Roger


Dorrell, Stephen
Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Knowles, Michael


Durant, Tony
Knox, David


Dykes, Hugh
Lamont, Rt Hon Norman


Eggar, Tim
Lang, Ian


Emery, Sir Peter
Latham, Michael


Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)
Lawrence, Ivan


Evennett, David
Lee, John (Pendle)


Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas
Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)


Fallon, Michael
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark


Favell, Tony
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)


Fenner, Dame Peggy
Lilley, Peter


Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)


Fookes, Dame Janet
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)


Forman, Nigel
Lord, Michael


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Luce, Rt Hon Richard


Forth, Eric
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas


Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)


Fox, Sir Marcus
Maclean, David


Franks, Cecil
McLoughlin, Patrick


Freeman, Roger
McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael


French, Douglas
McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick


Fry, Peter
Madel, David






Malins, Humfrey
Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)


Maples, John
Soames, Hon Nicholas


Marland, Paul
Speller, Tony


Marshall, John (Hendon S)
Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)


Martin, David (Portsmouth S)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)


Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick
Squire, Robin


Meyer, Sir Anthony
Stanbrook, Ivor


Miller, Sir Hal
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Mills, lain
Steen, Anthony


Miscampbell, Norman
Stern, Michael


Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Stevens, Lewis


Mitchell, Sir David
Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)


Moate, Roger
Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)


Monro, Sir Hector
Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)


Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Stokes, Sir John


Moore, Rt Hon John
Stradling Thomas, Sir John


Morris, M (N'hampton S)
Sumberg, David


Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)
Summerson, Hugo


Moss, Malcolm
Tapsell, Sir Peter


Moynihan, Hon Colin
Taylor, Ian (Esher)


Neale, Gerrard
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Needham, Richard
Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)


Nelson, Anthony
Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman


Neubert, Michael
Temple-Morris, Peter


Newton, Rt Hon Tony
Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)


Nicholls, Patrick
Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)


Nicholson, David (Taunton)
Thorne, Neil


Norris, Steve
Thornton, Malcolm


Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley
Thurnham, Peter


Oppenheim, Phillip
Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)


Page, Richard
Tracey, Richard


Paice, James
Tredinnick, David


Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil
Trippier, David


Patnick, Irvine
Trotter, Neville


Patten, Rt Hon John
Twinn, Dr Ian


Pawsey, James
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Viggers, Peter


Porter, David (Waveney)
Waddington, Rt Hon David


Powell, William (Corby)
Walden, George


Raison, Rt Hon Timothy
Walker, Bill (T'side North)


Redwood, John
Waller, Gary


Renton, Rt Hon Tim
Walters, Sir Dennis


Rhodes James, Robert
Ward, John


Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)


Ridsdale, Sir Julian
Watts, John


Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)
Wells, Bowen


Roe, Mrs Marion
Wheeler, Sir John


Rossi, Sir Hugh
Whitney, Ray


Rost, Peter
Wiggin, Jerry


Rowe, Andrew
Winterton, Mrs Ann


Ryder, Richard
Winterton, Nicholas


Sackville, Hon Tom
Wolfson, Mark


Sainsbury, Hon Tim
Wood, Timothy


Shaw, David (Dover)
Woodcock, Dr. Mike


Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Younger, Rt Hon George


Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)



Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)
Tellers for the Noes:


Shersby, Michael
Mr. Greg Knight and Mr. David Lightbown.


Sims, Roger



Skeet, Sir Trevor

Question accordingly negatived.

Question, That the proposed words be there added,put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments):

The House divided: Ayes 255, Noes 199.

Division No. 84]
[7.12 pm


AYES


Adley, Robert
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony


Aitken, Jonathan
Bellingham, Henry


Alexander, Richard
Bendall, Vivian


Amess, David
Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)


Arbuthnot, James
Biffen, Rt Hon John


Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas


Atkins, Robert
Boscawen, Hon Robert


Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)
Boswell, Tim


Banks, Robert (Harrogate)
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)





Bowis, John
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)


Brazier, Julian
Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)


Bright, Graham
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.


Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Cl't's)
Hill, James


Browne, John (Winchester)
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)


Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)
Hordern, Sir Peter


Burns, Simon
Howard, Rt Hon Michael


Burt, Alistair
Howarth, G. (Cannock &amp; B'wd)


Butcher, John
Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)


Butler, Chris
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Butterfill, John
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)


Carlisle, John, (Luton N)
Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Hunter, Andrew


Carrington, Matthew
Irvine, Michael


Carttiss, Michael
Jack, Michael


Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda
Janman, Tim


Chapman, Sydney
Jessel, Toby


Churchill, Mr
Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey


Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)
Jones, Robert B (Herts W)


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael


Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine


Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)
Key, Robert


Colvin, Michael
King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)


Conway, Derek
King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)


Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)
Kirkhope, Timothy


Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Knapman, Roger


Couchman, James
Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)


Currie, Mrs Edwina
Knowles, Michael


Davies, Q. (Stamf'd &amp; Spald'g)
Knox, David


Day, Stephen
Lamont, Rt Hon Norman


Devlin, Tim
Lang, Ian


Dorrell, Stephen
Latham, Michael


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Lawrence, Ivan


Durant, Tony
Lee, John (Pendle)


Dykes, Hugh
Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)


Eggar, Tim
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark


Emery, Sir Peter
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)


Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)
Lilley, Peter


Evennett, David
Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)


Fallon, Michael
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)


Favell, Tony
Lord, Michael


Fenner, Dame Peggy
Luce, Rt Hon Richard


Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas


Fishburn, John Dudley
MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)


Fookes, Dame Janet
Maclean, David


Forman, Nigel
McLoughlin, Patrick


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael


Forth, Eric
McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick


Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Madel, David


Fox, Sir Marcus
Malins, Humfrey


Franks, Cecil
Maples, John


Freeman, Roger
Marland, Paul


French, Douglas
Marshall, John (Hendon S)


Fry, Peter
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)


Gale, Roger
Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick


Gardiner, George
Miller, Sir Hal


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Mills, lain


Gill, Christopher
Miscampbell, Norman


Glyn, Dr Sir Alan
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)


Goodhart, Sir Philip
Mitchell, Sir David


Goodlad, Alastair
Moate, Roger


Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
Monro, Sir Hector


Gow, Ian
Montgomery, Sir Fergus


Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)
Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)


Greenway, John (Ryedale)
Moss, Malcolm


Gregory, Conal
Moynihan, Hon Colin


Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')
Neale, Gerrard


Grist, Ian
Needham, Richard


Ground, Patrick
Nelson, Anthony


Hague, William
Neubert, Michael


Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)
Newton, Rt Hon Tony


Hanley, Jeremy
Nicholls, Patrick


Hannam, John
Nicholson, David (Taunton)


Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')
Norris, Steve


Harris, David
Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley


Haselhurst, Alan
Oppenheim, Phillip


Hayes, Jerry
Page, Richard


Hayward, Robert
Paice, James


Heathcoat-Amory, David
Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil






Patten, Rt Hon John
Summerson, Hugo


Pawsey, James
Tapsell, Sir Peter


Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Taylor, Ian (Esher)


Porter, David (Waveney)
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Raison, Rt Hon Timothy
Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)


Redwood, John
Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman


Renton, Rt Hon Tim
Temple-Morris, Peter


Rhodes James, Robert
Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)


Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)


Ridsdale, Sir Julian
Thorne, Neil


Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)
Thornton, Malcolm


Roe, Mrs Marion
Thurnham, Peter


Rost, Peter
Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)


Rowe, Andrew
Tracey, Richard


Ryder, Richard
Tredinnick, David


Sackville, Hon Tom
Trippier, David


Sainsbury, Hon Tim
Trotter, Neville


Shaw, David (Dover)
Twinn, Dr Ian


Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Waddington, Rt Hon David


Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)
Walker, Bill (T'side North)


Shersby, Michael
Waller, Gary


Sims, Roger
Ward, John


Skeet, Sir Trevor
Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)


Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)
Watts, John


Soames, Hon Nicholas
Wells, Bowen


Speller, Tony
Wheeler, Sir John


Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)
Whitney, Ray


Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)
Wiggin, Jerry


Squire, Robin
Winterton, Mrs Ann


Stanbrook, Ivor
Winterton, Nicholas


Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John
Wolfson, Mark


Steen, Anthony
Wood, Timothy


Stern, Michael
Woodcock, Dr. Mike


Stevens, Lewis
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Younger, Rt Hon George


Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)



Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)
Tellers for the Ayes:


Stokes, Sir John
Mr. David Lightbown and Mr. Greg Knight.


Stradling Thomas, Sir John



Sumberg, David





NOES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Clwyd, Mrs Ann


Allen, Graham
Cohen, Harry


Anderson, Donald
Cook, Robin (Livingston)


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Corbett, Robin


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Corbyn, Jeremy


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Cox, Tom


Ashton, Joe
Cryer, Bob


Banks, Tony (Newham NW)
Cummings, John


Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Cunliffe, Lawrence


Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)
Dalyell, Tarn


Barron, Kevin
Darling, Alistair


Battle, John
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)


Beckett, Margaret
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)


Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n &amp; R'dish)
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)


Bermingham, Gerald
Dewar, Donald


Bidwell, Sydney
Dixon, Don


Blair, Tony
Dobson, Frank


Blunkett, David
Doran, Frank


Boateng, Paul
Douglas, Dick


Boyes, Roland
Duffy, A. E. P.


Bradley, Keith
Dunnachie, Jimmy


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Dun woody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth


Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)
Eastham, Ken


Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)
Evans, John (St Helens N)


Buchan, Norman
Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)


Buckley, George J.
Fatchett, Derek


Caborn, Richard
Faulds, Andrew


Callaghan, Jim
Fearn, Ronald


Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Field, Frank (Birkenhead)


Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)
Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)


Campbell-Savours, D. N.
Fisher, Mark


Canavan, Dennis
Flannery, Martin


Cartwright, John
Flynn, Paul


Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Foot, Rt Hon Michael


Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)
Foster, Derek


Clay, Bob
Fraser, John


Clelland, David
Fyfe, Maria





Garrett, John (Norwich South)
Morley, Elliot


Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)


George, Bruce
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)


Godman, Dr Norman A.
Mullin, Chris


Golding, Mrs Llin
Murphy, Paul


Gordon, Mildred
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon


Graham, Thomas
O'Neill, Martin


Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Patchett, Terry


Hardy, Peter
Pendry, Tom


Harman, Ms Harriet
Pike, Peter L.


Haynes, Frank
Powell, Ray (Ogmore)


Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Prescott, John


Heffer, Eric S.
Primarolo, Dawn


Henderson, Doug
Quin, Ms Joyce


Hinchliffe, David
Radice, Giles


Hogg, N. (C'nauld &amp; Kilsyth)
Randall, Stuart


Home Robertson, John
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn


Hood, Jimmy
Richardson, Jo


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Robertson, George


Howells, Geraint
Robinson, Geoffrey


Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)
Rogers, Allan


Hughes, John (Coventry NE)
Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Rowlands, Ted


Hughes, Roy (Newport E)
Ruddock, Joan


Hughes, Simon (Southwark)
Salmond, Alex


Illsley, Eric
Sedgemore, Brian


Ingram, Adam
Sheerman, Barry


Jones, Barry (Alyn &amp; Deeside)
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert


Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)
Short, Clare


Kennedy, Charles
Sillars, Jim


Kilfedder, James
Skinner, Dennis


Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil
Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)


Kirkwood, Archy
Smith, C. (Isl'ton &amp; F'bury)


Lambie, David
Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)


Lamond, James
Soley, Clive


Leadbitter, Ted
Spearing, Nigel


Leighton, Ron
Steel, Rt Hon Sir David


Lestor, Joan (Eccles)
Steinberg, Gerry


Lewis, Terry
Stott, Roger


Litherland, Robert
Strang, Gavin


Livsey, Richard
Straw, Jack


Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)


Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis


McAllion, John
Turner, Dennis


McAvoy, Thomas
Vaz, Keith


McFall, John
Wallace, James


McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)
Walley, Joan


McLeish, Henry
Wardell, Gareth (Gower)


McNamara, Kevin
Wareing, Robert N.


McWilliam, John
Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)


Madden, Max
Wigley, Dafydd


Marek, Dr John
Williams, Rt Hon Alan


Marshall, David (Shettleston)
Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)


Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Wilson, Brian


Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)
Winnick, David


Martlew, Eric
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Maxton, John
Worthington, Tony


Meacher, Michael
Young, David (Bolton SE)


Meale, Alan



Michael, Alun
Tellers for the Noes:


Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)
Mr. Andrew Welsh and Mrs. Margaret Ewing.


Moonie, Dr Lewis



Morgan, Rhodri

Question accordingly agreed to.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House recognises the important contribution made by the skilled and dedicated service of ambulance staff; regrets that some have seen fit to prolong and intensify the action taken against patients in furtherance of the current pay dispute; appreciates the work of the police, the armed forces and the voluntary services in maintaining an adequate emergency service; supports the Government and National Health Service management on their handling of the dispute; calls on the trade union leaders to ensure that the undertakings they have given to maintain an adequate

emergency service are met; believes that the dispute can only be resolved by the resumption of negotiations; and calls on the trade union leadership to recognise and act upon this.'.

City of London (Spitalfields Market) Bill (By Order)

Order read for consideration of Lords amendments.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Lords amendments be now considered.

Mr. Peter Shore: The last time that the Bill was briefly debated in the House was on a revival motion on 1 December 1988. The House divided on that day, and the revival motion was carried by 107 to 23. Thereafter, the Bill went to the other place, where, after Second Reading, it went into Committee. Several of my constituents, including the organisers of the campaign to save Spitalfields from the developers, appeared before their Lordships and argued cogently and tenaciously against the main proposals of the Bill. As Spitalfields is an important part of my constituency, I too gave evidence.
Although we did not defeat the Bill or win any substantial amendments, their Lordships recommended an increase in the provisions for planning gain—notably, a doubling to £5 million of the moneys for the community trust and a trebling of the moneys for training local people to acquire new skills—a sum of £150,000 over five years.
Today is the last chapter in the story which began with the Second Reading debate in the House on 12 May 1988. I understand that today we may consider only the Lords amendments to the Bill. The amendments are very narrow indeed. As the promoters of the Bill described them, they are technical. Therefore, I would not be in order to use this occasion, as I have used previous debates, to deploy the main arguments against the bill—that moving the market from Spitalfields to Temple Mills is not proven on planning grounds and that the proposed redevelopment of the vacated Spitalfields market site takes wholly inadequate account of the needs of my constituents for additional housing and small workshops. Those major and potent arguments must be placed on one side. The debate is confined to the amendments made in the Unopposed Bill Committee of the House of Lords.
The amendments on the Paper—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but he is about to embark on comments which may be more appropriate to the next motion which I shall put to the House. At present. we are considering the Question, That the Lords amendments be now considered. Once that is disposed of, we can consider the Question, That the Lords amendments be made. The right hon. Gentleman might prefer to address his remarks to that question rather than to the one before the House now. I shall dispose of the first question, after which the right hon. Gentleman can speak on the second motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendments.

Mr. Shore: Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The amendments relate to clause 4, which authorises from the appointed day the establishment of the new site for the market in Temple Mills. Under clause 4(3), the corporation of the City of London is enabled to exercise


all rights, powers, authorities, privileges, obligations and liabilities
in the new market site as they operated in the old Spitalfields site. Subsection (4) specifies certain amendments to both the City of London (Spitalfields Market) Act 1902 and the City of London (Various Powers) Act 1922. It has been argued that the wording of the original clause 4(3) was technically unsatisfactory and did not do that which it was intended to do. The amendments before us, therefore, are designed to clarify the real intention of the clause.
7.30 pm
The first amendment, inserting new clause (3A), reads:
For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that no obligation relating to the holding of the market shall require the Corporation to permit the carrying on of market trading on any part of the new site on which the carrying on of such trading would constitute development for which planning permission has not been granted under the Town and Country Planning Act 1971.
The new form of words raises the question of planning permission under the 1971 Act. This is the first reference to that Act that I have come across in all the debates on the Bill. My questions are simple. What developments relating to the carrying on of trading on the Temple Mills site would constitute development for which planning permission is needed? Was permission sought for any development on the present Spitalfields site? If so, was such an application ever refused?
The second main amendment is to clause 4(4), and refers to the corporation's power to dispose of lands in the new Temple Mills site not required for the purpose of the market. The words added in the amendment free such land
from any trusts attaching to it by reason of that land having formed part of the site of the market.
What trusts presently exist relating to land in the Temple Mills site? Is any compensation available to any trust whose interests may be involved? I look forward to the sponsor's explanation of the amendments and to his answers to my questions.
Finally, I wish to express my regrets that the debate on this important Bill must be confined within the ambit of these amendments and that we cannot seek, as we would wish, to persuade the House not to proceed further with a Bill that rides roughshod over so many of my constituents.

Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), and I shall deal briefly with the relevant points. First, I must emphasise that these Lords

amendments are no different from any other Lords amendments, and that the procedure is identical to that followed in all the private Bills that have been passed in this House since the right hon. Gentleman has been a Member. There has never been any opportunity of debating at this stage the principle of the Bill.
As I have done previously, I acknowledge the right hon. Gentleman's deep constituency interest in this issue, and that of the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon) who may wish to speak later. I am authorised to say that the hon. Members for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) and for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) fully support the Bill, as amended, because it is in the interests of their constituents.
The right hon. Gentleman asked, first, about the developments for the carrying on of trading at the Temple Mills site. The answer is, arguably any market trading outside the new market buildings for which planning permission has been given, such as the car parks or landscaped areas on the Temple Mills site. That is the simple answer.
Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman asked what trusts presently exist and whether any compensation is available. There are no such trusts, so the question of compensation does not arise. I should explain what the trusts are. The corporation is subject to a trust, the beneficiaries of which are all members of the public who wish to come and trade. It is one of those archaic lawyer's delights. There is not a trust in the sense that the right hon. Gentleman and I, as occupants of the Clapham omnibus, would expect. Those are the answers to his questions.
The Committee of this House found no need, after long debate, to make amendments. After many days of debate upstairs, for some strange reason their lawyers decided to gild the lily. There is no more to this than that. These are technical amendments, which do not alter by one jot or iota the principle of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL (By Order)

Order read for consideration of Bill, as amended.

Question, That the Bill be now considered, put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That Standing Order 205 (Notice of Third Reading) be suspended and that the Bill be now read the Third time.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Data Protection

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peter Lloyd): I beg to move,
That the draft Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) (Amendment) Order 1990, which was laid before this House on 30th January, be approved.
Before discussing the reasons for the order, I should like to say a little about the Data Protection Act 1984, under which the order will be made. The Act has its origins in the 1981 European convention for the protection of individuals with regard to the automatic processing of personal data.
When the Act came fully into force on 11 November 1987, we were able to ratify the convention. The convention and the Act balance the duties of data users—that is, those who hold and process personal data on computers—with protection for data subjects—those about whom the data are held.
Data users have an interest in the legislation, because compliance with the convention enables transfer of data to and from other ratifying countries without artificial obstruction; and data subjects benefit from the protection and the rights given to them under the Act. The legislation was enacted in July 1984, and Mr. Eric Howe became the Data Protection Registrar. Mr. Howe was recently reappointed for a further five-year term. The registrar is independent of Government and reports directly to Parliament: his fifth annual report was published in July 1989.
The main duties of the registrar are to maintain a public register of data users to ensure registration by those data users, to promote observance of the data protection principles set out in the schedule to the Data Protection Act 1984; to give advice and guidance on good practice; to consider complaints, and generally to enforce the Act. With around 130,000 registered data users and hundreds of millions of automated personal data files, and new situations and issues arising every day, that is a substantial task. I should like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Howe for the way in which he and his office have carried out their duties under the Act.
In addition, I should say that the working of the Act is being reviewed by an interdepartmental committee chaired by the Home Office with representatives from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Employment and with the Data Protection Registrar as adviser. The terms of reference of the committee are as follows:
to review the implementation of the Data Protection Act, particularly with regard to the impact on data users of registration requirements; and to make recommendations.
The review was occasioned by the Government's deregulation policy and concern among data users about administrative burdens arising from the Act. The committee hopes to report to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary fairly soon, but obviously I cannot say what its recommendations might be.

Mr. Steve Norris: As a result of the review, will one of the options be the scrapping of the bureaucratic machinery by which privileges under the Data Protection Act are maintained? Surely my hon. friend agrees that it represents a considerable administrative operation involving many staff and a great deal of

money. There is a respectable school of thought that believes that all that is needed in the circumstances is the basic legislation and the right of access to the courts. In that event there would be an opportunity to save a great deal of public money and to provide a more realistic framework of protection.

Mr. Lloyd: We are having the review because we want to ensure that the Data Protection Act does not merely do its job, but does it in a manner that results in the least burden on industry and on data users, while maintaining the protection that data subjects have a right to expect. The purpose of the committee is to go as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) wants to go, subject to the protection that data subjects should have under the Act, which it was designed to give them.
The order needs an affirmative resolution in both Houses if it is to come into effect. The Data Protection Act gives subject access rights to individuals. That means that they have a general right of access to automated personal data held on them by a registered data user. But there are exemptions, so that, for example, personal data held for the purposes of prevention or detection of crime are exempt if allowing access would be likely to prejudice that purpose.
The Act also enables the Secretary of State to make certain further exemptions by order. Hon. Members may remember that we debated four such orders on 3 November 1987; an account of those debates may be found at columns 885 to 905 of the Official Report. One of them was the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987, made on 9 November 1987 under section 30(2) of the Act. It exempted data held for the purpose of regulating financial services from the subject access provisions of the Data Protection Act. The reason for the exemption is that, without it, a data subject could discover what information regulators held about him and thus frustrate the detection or investigation of his malpractice and potential court proceedings.
While the protection of data subjects is very important and indeed at the heart of this legislation, should not their rights be overriding in all cases. In this particular case, Parliament considered that the interests of others—for example, those damaged by the suspected malpractice—must prevail.
The order amends the 1987 order in the light of sections of part III of the Companies Act 1989, which will come into force on 21 February, and of part VIII of that Act, which it is proposed should be brought into force on 15 March.

Mr. John Butterfill: What will be the effect of the order on data held about patients by the National Health Service? Will such patients be protected adequately, and will the concerns expressed by the medical profession be met?

Mr. Lloyd: The order will have nothing to do with those categories, because we are discussing delegated legislation as a result of the Companies Act 1989 rather than legislation pertaining to data held on patients or other individuals in other sectors. As my hon. Friend knows, some private Members' legislation on that matter made such data more available to the individual concerned. It is to that and any subsequent legislation that my hon. Friend should look in this instance.
The order brings the 1987 order into line with new powers in the Companies Act 1989. First, while the Companies Act 1985 enabled the Secretary of State to require production and explanation of a company's records, the Companies Act 1989 allows competent persons other than departmental officials to carry out such inquiries. That will enable the Secretary of State to bring in special expertise in increasingly complex cases and will give more flexibility to cope with sudden increases in work load.
Secondly, the 1989 Act will enable the Secretary of State to assist overseas regulators in the company law, financial services and insurance spheres by investigating in the United Kingdom on their behalf. The new power will protect United Kingdom investors by helping overseas regulators who are investigating wrongdoings that may have been perpetrated by persons who, undetected, would subsequently be free to carry on investment business into or in the United Kingdom. It will also help our investigators to gain reciprocal assistance from overseas regulators, particularly those who already have compulsory investigation powers that can be used on behalf of overseas regulators—for example, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
The new power is thus a response to the current and expected sophistication and internationalisation of markets with transactions straddling one or more national borders.

Mr. Butterfill: My hon. Friend will remember that, when we discussed the Financial Services Act 1986, considerable concern was expressed about the need for confidentiality in some areas. There was particular concern that some institutions in London, which relied upon confidentiality for their investors, should not have their legitimate interests prejudiced in a way that affected the viability of the London market and encouraged people to place their business outside London. Is my hon. friend satisfied that the order will not be a licence for overseas investigators to come in and look at everything that is going on, to the detriment of our market?

Mr. Lloyd: My hon. Friend is right to be concerned. The order does not make it mandatory upon the Secretary of State to provide the information for which he is asked by an overseas agency or country, but it empowers him to transfer that information, when he thinks there is good reason, to countries that have also signed the convention—it has similar rules to the Act that we brought in. I am certain that we have the necessary safeguards and that the Secretary of State will not exercise his right to transfer that information without good reason.
To unravel a suspected breach of the law, regulators frequently and increasingly find it necessary to trace transactions to all the countries to which they have ramified.
Thirdly, part VIII of the Companies Act makes various amendments to the Financial Services Act 1986. Most of them relate to the powers of the Securities and Investments Board, which exercises powers under the Financial Services Act transferred by the Secretary of State. As Parliament recognised in approving the 1987 order, it may be essential for the effective operation of a regulator such as the board that individuals on whom data are held are not able to have access to those date.
Part II of the schedule to the order therefore updates the 1987 order to take account of modified or new functions under the amended Financial Services Act. In particular, the Companies Act amendments confer new powers to issue statements of principle and codes of practice to designated rules as applying directly to members of a self-regulating organisation recognised by the Securities and Investments Board and to use the enforcement powers in the Financial Services Act to assist an overseas regulator.

Mr. Butterfill: Does my hon. Friend realise that one of the criticisms levelled at the way in which the Financial Services Act operates in practice has been that it has led to an enormous increase in regulations and, therefore, a huge increase in the cost of compliance for companies operating in London? Many of those companies feel that it has led them to be less competitive internationally. Is my hon. Friend happy that the increased number of regulations required by the order will not inhibit our domestic market?

Mr. Lloyd: The Financial Services Act is not a matter for me and is certainly beyond the scope of our discussions tonight. The order does not give extra work to companies, but it gives the Secretary of State more freedom to make the investigations that he is already empowered to make and to transfer information abroad under conditions that are in our interests. It does not create any new burdens for the City, industry or any other data user.
The principles, designated rules and codes of practice provide the primary regulator with more flexibility in regulating the carrying on of investment. The order is not controversial. It has been the subject of detailed discussion between my Department and the other Departments in Whitehall with the main interest in its subject matter. As the Act requires, the Data Protection Registrar has also been consulted and is content with the order. Therefore, I happily commend it to the House.

Mr. Stuart Randall: The order is complicated and an example of how not to draft legislation. I refer specifically to part II of the schedule. I have spoken to a few people today, none of whom seems to understand what this is about. I appreciate the Minister's explanation, which has helped considerably. In the explanatory note, only two full lines are devoted to part II. If we are to produce such orders in future, the House should be given a proper explanatory note so tha.t we understand what we are dealing with.
As the Minister said, the order deals mainly with consequential amendments emerging from the Companies Act 1989. It extends the list of functions in the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987, which is embraced by section 30 of the Data Protection Act. This means that individuals will be further denied access to computer files containing information about them. In losing that liberty, individuals give authorities the opportunity to identify fraud and maladministration in the financial services industry.
The Government will claim that they have got the balance right between these two aspects, and are minimising individuals' loss of liberty against the broader benefit of stamping out maladministration. How do we


know that that is so? How can we be sure that the Government are not erring on the side of oppression—a strong word, but one which serves in tonight's debate?

Mr. Butterfill: I do not know whether, in his constituency, the hon. Gentleman has experienced the same as I have in Bournemouth, West. There, a large number of investors in Barlow Clowes thought that they had lost their entire life savings. Only the generosity of the Government has enabled them to recover most of them, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for that. Surely the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) would accept that such fraud is sufficiently serious to warrant this order—indeed, makes it essential.

Mr. Randall: I fail to see the logic of that. We all have constituents who have been affected by Barlow Clowes. However, a balance must be struck. We must ensure that people have access to files about themselves. The order would prevent people from having access to those files so that the Department of Trade and Industry could carry out investigative work and not be impaired by people making public information that would create difficulties for the DTI. I fear that the Government are erring on the side of oppression—I use that word intentionally, because it illustrates my point.
It is exceedingly difficult to establish whether the balance is right. Why are the exemptions under section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 so extensive? The 1987 order, or the 1987 version of what we are discussing—now we have the television cameras on us, the public can see the scale of it—

Mr. Irvine Patnick: It is small print.

Mr. Randall: The Government Whip, who should be silent, says that it is small print. He strengthens my argument: the print is small and we can see the extent to which people's freedom of access to files has been limited. Why are the exemptions so extensive? For example, why, under the 1987 order, do the Bank of England's functions result in limiting individuals' access to their personal files? Why is that necessary? Why are the functions in relation to the certification of directors restricted?
Some people might say that there are pretty obvious reasons for making personal files exempt under section 30 of the Data Protection Act. I am not sure on what grounds we could argue that tonight in the context of this order. No one here knows the principles on which those decisions are taken. I have given just two examples, but there are yards of them. How was the list arrived at? It arises from within the Department of Trade and Industry which in turn consults the Data Protection Registrar. The Minister explained that at some length. However, the power and influence of the registrar is exceedingly limited. It would be almost impossible for him or the Home Office to assess whether the huge list of additions that we are considering makes sense. The Data Protection Registrar, who is independent, is not, unlike the DTI, involved in investigative work, so he cannot make many suggestions.
I imagine that the registrar would simply say that he could see no obvious reason why these functions should not exist. It is clear, therefore, that the role of the

indpendent registrar in establishing whether limits should be placed on individuals' access to personal files is highly limited. The initiative and power rest with the DTI.
I am dubious whether the Government have struck the right balance between people's freedom to see files about themselves and the benefits of denying access in tackling corruption in the financial services industry. I am inclined to be a little suspicious of the Government in this respect. I suspect that they will tend to restrict people's access to their files merely because of the ethos of secrecy that pervades Whitehall. The Opposition see great virtue in creating a more open society. We should like a freedom of information Act that would go much further towards compelling Departments to provide information far more readily.
Most other countries in the developed world, including Australia, Canada and the USA, are way ahead of Britain, and we are beginning to look outdated and obsessed with secrecy. Few would disagree with that proposition. There must be a change, and we must develop our democracy.

Mr. Norris: The hon. Gentleman will know that, as a recently retired chairman of the campaign, I broadly agree with him about the desirability of a freedom of information Act. But does he agree that the Australian and American systems have fairly comprehensive exemptions relating to commercial confidentiality, because of the obvious desirability of such confidentiality in investigations of fraud?

Mr. Randall: I do not argue against exemptions; I argue against unnecessary exemptions. I do not know from the information in the order whether these exemptions are necessary or unnecessary. I challenge hon. Members to judge whether they are. We cannot make an assessment, because the information is not available.

Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the order gives discretion to the Secretary of State? He will be accountable—eventually—directly to Parliament. Is not that the safeguard that we need?

Mr. Randall: The hon. Gentleman is not quite right. The Secretary of State has certain powers and is expected to carry out certain functions. To do so he has to ensure that the availability of information does not prejudice the carrying out of those functions. The 1987 order and this order make the number of functions embraced by section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 very large—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I am reluctant to interrupt the debate, but there are limits. Presumably the order to which the hon. Gentleman is referring came before, and was approved by, the House. We cannot reopen that debate now.

Mr. Randall: I agree. I am talking about the way in which this order extends the scope of the 1987 order. I question whether the list should be as long—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That would be going beyond the bounds of what is proper tonight. We are debating the merits or otherwise of the matters intended to be added to the list. We cannot discuss the generality of that list, or whether it is too long or too short.

Mr. Norris: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely, at the point at which we approve the new order, we are reconstituting the earlier legislation—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is seeking to challenge my ruling, or to debate it, and that he cannot do.

Mr. Randall: I do not challenge your ruling, as you very well know, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister referred to the additional functions of certain persons in assisting overseas regulatory authorities. Those functions make the overall list rather long, but I note your comments, and will refrain from pursuing the point.
Other countries have shown that huge savings can be made by rooting out poor and inefficient administrations. Had they not encouraged more openness, the public in those countries could not have challenged the authorities, because they would not have had the information with which to do so. The information revolution in the developed world—it is directly related to the information held in the computer files referred to in the order—is moving at an incredible pace. We must match these impressive developments in technology and information with equally impressive developments in openness so as to protect people's privacy and access rights.

Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although we all accept that the rights of the citizen need safeguarding, if we allowed unlimited access to information, it could tend to inhibit the functions of an Executive and make it unduly cautious? If they know that everything they do may be subject to public scrutiny, an Executive may always be inclined to err on the side of caution and never propose anything innovative or exciting.

Mr. Randall: I am not advocating unlimited access—that would he absurd—but this order prompts the question: are we going in the right direction? Massive changes are under way.
I should like to deal with some specific parts of the order. Why does paragraph 2 of part I of the schedule limit access to personal files via section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 in connection with persons assessing overseas regulatory authorities? The Minister touched on that in his speech, but I should be grateful for a little more detail.
One could argue that the exemption order is needed to investigate malpractice involving computer data in the United Kingdom. However, the files could be held at the same time in another country. One could argue that we have access via the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987 to United Kingdom regulators, and now we need access to overseas regulators. I accept that argument, but I am still not satisfied that we are maximising the extent to which we provide access by individuals to personal files. We seem to be using a massive sledgehammer to crack a very small nut.

Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest an arrangement under which information provided for the investigation of overseas fraud by an overseas regulator should be made available to a United Kingdom citizen who might be the subject of such an investigation by an overseas regulator?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is going well beyond the scope of the order.

Mr. Randall: We all want corruption and maladministration to be eliminated. If a company or the Government wish to restrict access to personal files, the burden of proof for the restriction should rest with the company or with a Department. Why not make public the justification for restricting a person's access to his own files? That has not been referred to, but I do not see why it should not happen.
I do not suggest that we should make public all the details surrounding a case involving corruption. Plainly, such information would have to be exempted. I am talking about setting the principle on which restriction of access to information is made public. I should be interested in whether the Minister finds that broad principle acceptable. To me it is not at all unreasonable. It may be hard for some people to swallow, but I think that this is how matters will continue to proceed, now and in the future.
Part II of the schedule seems to relate to exempting, via section 30 of the Data Protection Act, certain new functions that are now part of the Financial Services Act 1986. I imagine that the new functions in that Act have arisen through changes in the Companies Act 1989. Perhaps the Minister will explain specifically the functions referred to in paragraph 4 of part II of the schedule because I cannot understand them. Paragraph 5 of part II talks about
Functions … in relation to exemption of advertisements".
That is gobbledegook, and we should have had an explanation. I am sorry to have to ask the Minister to explain such things.
Will the Minister explain the thinking behind paragraph I of part I of the schedule? It says that the Secretary of State would authorise an officer to carry out investigations. Why does the paragraph refer to an "other competent person"? Is it because the Department of Trade and Industry has reduced its staff to such an extent that it no longer has the expertise to carry out that vital work, or is it a deliberate policy to involve the private sector rather than civil servants? I have no hang-ups about the private sector, but I wonder whether such sensitive work involving personal privacy should not be done by Government officials.

Mr. Steve Norris: The order follows a long tradition of orders that recognise the importance of data protection and the rights of subjects to have access to that data, while at the same time excluding such data from public access.
Like the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall), I should like to look in detail at the schedule. I shall comment first on the interesting substitution in part I:
or other competent person authorised by the Secretary of State".
The 1987 order designated an officer. I assume that the new wording is necessary because, quite properly, in the discharge of his functions, the Secretary of State may wish to empower an outside investigator or inspector to gain access to information about a person that is pertinent. under the order.
That is to say, it may be financial data about the person, which could lead to prosecution for dishonesty or fraud. If such an authorised "other competent person" was not mentioned in the order, the Secretary of State would be


limited in the way in which the powers could be exercised. Perhaps when my hon. Friend the Minister winds up he will comment on that.
I was intrigued by the amendments in part II of the schedule. Paragraph 3 contains an interesting change because the words
rules, guidance, arrangements or restrictions
are to be removed and the words
rules, statements of principle, regulations, codes of practice, guidance, arrangements or practices
are to be substituted. It looks as if someone sat down with a lexicon or perhaps "Roget's Thesaurus" and tried to discover all the variations of the word "rules", having previously come up with only four.
Why are "statements of principle" suddenly involved in the legislation? The House has been advised that this is merely a technical order. If so, why is it necessary to introduce something as fundamental as "statements of principle"? The original statement of principle in section 28 of the Data Protection Act 1984 included substantial exclusions. No doubt hon. Members will recall that. Those were exclusions of any information concerning
(a) the prevention or detection of crime;
(b) the apprehension or prosecution of offenders; or
(c) the assessment or collection of any tax or duty".
I was on the Committee that examined that Bill in 1984 and for the life of me I could not think what other activity could not be covered by those exclusions, especially in the case of financial services. I am at a loss to understand why it is now necessary to include a new statement of principle in the entry relating to the functions under chapter XIV of part I of the Data Protection Act 1984, in place of the words
rules, guidance, arrangements or restrictions.
Similarly, I am unsure why codes of practice are to be included. I imagine that that is because codes of practice, whether statutory or non-statutory, may have a binding effect on any regulations that are relevant under the order. Again, an explanation is needed.
Even more intriguing is that, whereas in our original assessment, under part II of the Act there appears the word "restrictions", it no longer appears in the new form of words. I am again at a loss to understand why. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with those important matters when he winds up.
The overall purpose of the order is to keep up to date the general principle of allowing the Secretary of State to keep secret such information as may be deemed to be sensitive in connection with a prosecution for fraud or a related offence of dishonesty. I take the extremely relevant point made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West, when he outlined the delicate balance that must be struck between the general principle of providing access to confidential information on the data subject—which is the cardinal principle, laid down by the European convention—and the convention's recognition of the right to exclude information in certain sensitive categories.
It is entirely reasonable to update the 1987 order. Throughout data protection legislation, not only in Australia and the United States but elsewhere, there runs the well-recognised principle that financial services markets and the investigation of fraud or dishonesty should legitimately be an exempted area. I am not sure that the order could not be more narrowly drawn. Whenever such orders are laid before the House, the onus should be

on the Government to demonstrate that not one jot of personal information shall be withhld from subject access unless there is concrete justification. I believe that that was the thrust of the argument of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West, and I agree that that should be the case.
In respect of financial services investigations in particular, secrecy is all. Were the subject of such an investigation to be given any idea that information was held about him, he could take advantage of that knowledge to arrange his affairs so as to gain protection under the umbrella that the order will constitute. In that context, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be aware of the current cases, which are sub judice, in which it is clear that information relating to the availability of knowledge on subject access could have been relevant to persons who have been charged with an offence.

Mr. Randall: We all agree on the principles of the order. As to whether the list is too big or too small, I still contend that there is no way of assessing that and whether the Government have gone too far down the path to secrecy.

Mr. Norris: Given that section 28 of the Data Protection Act 1984 draws exemptions as wide as
the assessment or collection of any tax or duty",
the hon. Member makes a good point. My hon. Friend the Minister must make it clear that he has examined every detail of the order's applicability to information held about a data subject—and he must assure himself that in no way, and in no particular, does the subject access provision need further modification so as to allow the form of access to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
Clearly, it is important that the order receives the approval of the House, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West agrees that there is no virtue in legislation that is hamstrung by not being related to other current legislation. To the extent to which the amendments contained in the order bring matters into line with the Companies Act 1989, obviously we cannot refuse to approve it. Nevertheless, the general principles of the European convention, which provide that in all but exceptional circumstances a data subject should have access to information held about him or her, are so important that, whenever such a measure comes before the House, it is vital that the Minister presenting it is assured that it is drawn as narrowly as practicable, to provide necessary confidentiality.
I have always believed that, when Governments are in doubt, they should as a general principle be prepared to tell citizens what is done in their name. That principle should particularly guide my right hon. and hon. Friends, and I am grateful for the support for it shown by Opposition Members. That principle ensures that a democracy works to serve the people and is not governed in turn by officials who can hide behind a cloak of secrecy.
In that context, my hon. Friend the Minister has some further explaining to do. However, in terms of the order's general principles and of the necessity to ensure that existing measures are updated in line with the Companies Act 1989, I commend it to the House. I trust that, when my hon. Friend winds up, he will give the officials in the Box something to do this evening and answer the points that I raised.
I recall being invited to serve on the Committee considering the Data Protection Bill after my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) approached


me in the Lobby and asked, "What do you know about data protection?" When I replied, "Nothing," I found myself instantly on the Committee. That was the first on which I served on entering the House in 1983, and the principle of knowing nothing initially has stood me in good stead. I have applied it in respect of every other Committee on which I have served. However, aware as I am of the detailed nature of the order, I commend to my hon. Friend the Minister a thorough review of all the options available to him.

Mr. Harry Cohen: I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) on a very good speech. He is one of the few right hon. and hon. Members to make sense of data protection legislation. As he said, his experience goes back to the Committee that considered the Data Protection Bill. He played an honourable role then and has done so since in respect of data protection matters, in ensuring that orders such as this are not so widely drawn that they make it impossible for individuals to be certain of their rights. Exemptions may be allowable in cases of fraud, but they should be clearly spelt out. I am sure that the hon. Member for Epping Forest agrees that there should be a role for the Data Protection Registrar.
The Minister said that the order is not controversial. That may be true on the surface, because its wording is bland and vague—I suspect, deliberately so. However, the denial of access rights is not so non-controversial to the subject concerned. Last Tuesday, the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson), said of the Data Protection Act 1984:
The Act—which was passed under the present Government—provides valuable protection for the individual, while recognising the need for controlled exchange in the use of personal data. The Government are wholly committed to the enforcement of the Act through the Office of the Data Protection Registrar."—[OfficialReport, 15 February 1990; Vol. 167, c.470.]
The Government claim it as a credit, but the Data Protection Act 1984 is one of the worst in Europe. The Data Protection Registrar is powerless over enforcement of exemptions. Within four days of that statement, we are debating the order, and we can see the true nature of the Government's thinking on the Data Protection Act. They have put before the House an order which does the complete opposite of what the Minister said they would do.
The order is just what it seems. First, it removes protection from the individual. Secondly, it removes any enforcement powers from the Data Protection Registrar.The Minister shakes his head, but the DPR is powerless over subject access exemptions. Thirdly, it provides no real information to the House concerning details of the orders.
The Minister made a comment about the purpose of the order in relation to fraud. The order amends another order—the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemptions) Order 1987. Together, both orders list more than 230 statements about withholding rights of access to personal data from data subjects.
When SI 1987/1905 was debated in the House, very little information was provided about it, even though some of the statements in the statutory instrument seemed quite broad. For example, in the middle of page 5, we find the words:

Any functions of making available information for purposes or otherwise in connection with any functions specified in this Schedule in relation to Acts".
Apart from being gobbledegook, when one considers that paragraph closely, one sees that the schedule to which it refers was a very broad schedule which became virtually open-ended when the exemptions were made. The order before us is exactly similar, and it is equally generous with its wording. For example, paragraph 4 would insert:
Functions of Secretary of State or designated agency under Chapter XV of Part I.
I understand that to mean all functions of all designated agencies. That is a very broad order.
The hon. Member for Epping Forest quite rightly said that orders about access exemptions should be drawn very narrowly, so that the House and the public can see exactly what is being allowed, and will know what exemptions will affect the right of individuals to see personal data, and when the DPR cannot get involved.
I also note that, as with SI 1905, the Government have not provided any detailed reason that I can see why an individual's rights are being removed. Although the orders contain 230 statements or functions, they contain little detail about why we should refuse an individual access to personal data. The House is in the dark about how the exemptions will apply in practice. The only light that has been shed on the matter was in the Minister's statement tonight, at the beginning of the debate. This situation should be unacceptable to the House. Each subject access exemption represents a significant diminution of an individual's rights. Consequently, each exemption should be considered most carefully. Once allowed, an exemption is total, and once it is applied, the individual is powerless to do anything about it.
In paragraph 220 of his fifth annual report, the Data Protection Registrar summarises what a subject access exemption means, saying:
The individual does not know that the data user has applied a subject access exemption and is in no position to make an appeal to test whether the data user has been properly applied or not.

Mr. Butterfill: Will the hon. Gentleman tell me to which of the functions under section 30 he considers that this should not apply? Does he exclude dishonesty or incompetence, malpractice or the investigation of bankruptcy? Does he not agree that other people need protection, as well as the person who is being investigated?

Mr. Cohen: Of course. I also think that exemption should be clearly defined; but we do not need 230 different statements of where they should apply. In a moment, I shall come to a particular example where I think subject access exemption may be applied, but let me finish the paragraph that I was talking about.
I cannot understand why it is not possible for the Government to produce clear explanatory notes, such a.s notes on clauses, before they put a whole range of personal data into an information black hole. The notes would explain why a subject access exemption was necessary, so that we could judge the validity of the Minister's arguments in every one of the 230 cases.
One case in which the exemptions could be misused is in the use of black lists. We know from debates in Committee on the Employment Bill that companies are using blacklists. They adversely affect individuals, perhaps because they are in a trade union or are involved in politics—which is their democratic right. Companies keep that


sort of information about people on their computers. An individual might want to get access to that information, but if it conveniently comes under one of those 230 statements, and so has become a subject access exemption, the individual will not even know that he is on a blacklist, judging from what the DPR said in his report. If he finds out, he will not get access to data because the law will have been changed by the broad wording in the order to make blacklists exempt.

Mr. Butterfill: I am puzzled by what the hon. Gentleman is saying. It seems to me that we are considering an order that is limited to data protection for the regulation of financial services. I cannot see that a blacklist against an individual could have any connection with the regulation of financial services in the way that he suggests. Surely it has more to do with protection of the public from fraud and other undesirable practices, and I am sure that even the hon. Gentleman would not object to that.

Mr. Cohen: The Financial Services Act 1986 was a thick Act and took a lot of time and consideration in the House. It had many clauses that could relate to blacklisting.
A trade unionist might want information about a takeover because it affected the jobs of union members. The company could say that the union was affecting financial services and its stock market quote, and therefore it would use its subject access exemption to stop them getting the information. That could easily happen, because the Financial Services Act was so broadly drawn.
I wish to raise further questions concerning the statements on the first page of the order that it was made
after consultation with the Data Protection Registrar".
The Minister quoted that. I wish to enlarge on the subject of those consultations. Did the registrar agree with the Minister's wording of the order? Did he have any advice for the Minister, and was any of that advice ignored? I think that the House should know exactly what the DPR said.
For example, did the DPR draw the Minister's attention to paragraph 232 on page 87 of his fifth annual report:
Exemptions from subject access right should be strictly limited and very carefully defined"?
If the DPR was being consistent, he would give such advice. I should be interested to hear whether he did, and what the Minister's response was. As the Government have had two full years of operation to report on how the exemptions in SI 1905 have worked in practice, will the Minister say how many times subject access has been refused under the 1987 order?
Did the registrar raise during the consultation process his advice in paragraph 221 of the fifth annual report:
I recommend that data users should be required to keep a log of the cases in which subject access exemption is relied upon and the reasons for using the exemption"?
Has the Minister any views on that advice, which I should have thought the House would regard as reasonable?
Such questions are important, especially considering the Minister who will exercise the power and control the many functions that facilitate subject access exemptions. That Minister will be the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is better known for his work in pursuit of privatisation than for his work to protect privacy. Privacy

comes very low on his list of priorities. He was the one who introduced the poll tax, which has smashed privacy to smithereens, yet we are to give him powers over it under the order. That hardly inspires confidence.

Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is also known for his rigorous pursuit of wrongdoers and that his action in trying to eliminate fraud and in dealing sympathetically with investors in Barlow Clowes shows him in a rather different light from that in which the hon. Gentleman seeks to portray him?

Mr. Cohen: I shall not go into the issues surrounding Barlow Clowes

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): That is a good thing.

Mr. Cohen: But deeds speak louder than words, and we have not had great actions from the Secretary of State to tackle the wrongdoers. The multi-billion pound fraudsters have not been dragged through the courts by the Secretary of State. Recently, the right hon. Gentleman took to court a case for which his Department was so badly prepared that the procedings collapsed in a shambles. The hon. Gentleman is on the wrong tack in saying that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has a good reputation in this matter; the right hon. Gentleman's actions do not support that claim.

Mr. Michael Stern: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that much of the work of the Department of Trade and Industry—under whomever happens to be the Secretary of State—leads to major trials? I am not allowed to name the trial that started last week but, with his known fairness, the hon. Gentleman will agree that that trial could not have started and could not be expected, as it is, to last about six months—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) has stuck perfectly to the motion, and I am sure that he will continue to do so.

Mr. Cohen: I shall not pursue that line, Madam Deputy Speaker. My response to the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) emphasised my view: many of the trials collapse in a shambles, and the wrongdoers have not been hauled before the courts and made to pay back the money of which they have robbed shareholders and the public.

Mr. Butterfill: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Cohen: No, I shall not give way; you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have asked me not to pursue these matters, but to stick to the order.

Mr. Butterfill: My point relates specifically to the order.

Mr. Cohen: In that case, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the order extends the ability of the Secretary of State to co-operate with investigators and regulators overseas? In view of the increasingly international nature of fraud, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the order represents a valuable contribution to the investigation of fraud?

Mr. Cohen: Of course we need links with overseas crimebusters to bust crime internationally, and I support that, but I do not think that the order will necessarily contribute greatly to that task. It is more likely to affect the individual's rights of privacy, which should be preserved. Such rights may be just as much affected by a bland and vague order such as this as big criminals may be affected by it. That is what concerns me, and that is why the order should be more tightly drawn, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest said.

Mr. Gary Waller: I have listened with great care to what the hon. Gentleman has said, and so far it has been very theoretical. He has had access to the reports of the Data Protection Registrar. The key question that we must all ask ourselves concerning the alteration is whether there are data to which the subject would previously have had access and which would have been useful to him which he is now to be denied. Can the hon. Gentleman give practical examples from the reports to which he has had access to demonstrate that fact?

Mr. Cohen: Yes, my speech has been theoretical, but when the order is passed, a number of individuals will be denied the right to information that companies hold about them. At the moment, individuals have the right to information, and we are denying them that right. The examples will come after the order has been passed. I gave the House one example—that of a trade unionist trying to get information in a blacklisting case. Practical problems will arise when people are denied their subject access rights.
All that the House can say about the order is this: first, we do not have enough information about how it will work in practice; secondly, we cannot tell whether it is drawn too widely, although in my view it is. We should ask the Minister for clearer information, and further detail should be given to the House on how the exemptions will apply in practice. Otherwise, abuses will occur and the House will be sending out the message that we do not really care about individuals' rights.
I am getting rather tired of the Government's boasting, as the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science boasted last Tuesday, that the Data Protection Act provides valuable protection for the individual, only to undermine that Act by orders such as this. I advise hon. Members that, when they read words like "valuable protection for the individual" in Hansard, they should immediately understand them as having the same meaning when used by Ministers as if they had been used by A1 Capone.

Mr. John Butterfill: I support the objectives of the order but I must join some of my Friends and Opposition Members in saying that the explanatory memorandum that accompanies the order is somewhat less than helpful—and nor is the English in which it is couched particularly easy to follow.
The order would amend a large number of existing Acts and previous orders, and perhaps it would help if I ran through them. We are amending not only the Data Protection Act 1984 but the Companies Acts 1985 and 1989 and the Financial Services Act 1986.

Mr. Randall: They are consequential amendments.

Mr. Butterfill: I agree that they are consequential amendments, but they are amendments nevertheless. The interrelationship of the Acts and the other orders that we are amending is complex. It would have been much more helpful if the explanatory note had contained more information so that we could understand how the legislation interacts. Instead, hon. Members have been left to work it out for themselves—in my case, by a somewhat convoluted process. I am not an expert in such matters. However, I have done my best.

Mr. Stern: May I underline my hon. Friend's point by saying that, when hon. Members are presented with an explanatory note, it always seems to be couched in a form of English in which "explanatory" is the exact reverse of the truth. With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall put the first sentence on the record so that those who read Hansard can appreciate in all their beauty the triple convolutions of the so-called prose that is supposed to explain what the order means. The explanatory note reads:
Section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 provides th.it personal data"—
subject—
held for the purpose of discharging statutory functions"—
"functions" becomes a subsidiary subject—
which are designated by the Secretary of State"—
new subject—
by an order"—
further new subject—
made under that section"—
further new subject, although we have now forgotten which section is being referred to—
shall be exempt from the subject access provisions"—
a triple noun—
of the Act in any case in which the application of those provisions to the data"—
by now we have completely forgotten what data we are talking about—
would be likely to prejudice the proper discharge of those functions.
Whoever wrote that sentence should enrol immediately in a course on clear English, because the one thing that that sentence is not is explanatory.

Mr. Butterfill: My hon. Friend anticipates precisely the point that I intended to make. If he reads the second part of the explanatory note, the abuse of English and the defeat of the vaulting imagination of hon. Members will become even more apparent. It says:
Schedule 1 to the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987 ('the 1987 Order') designates functions for the purposes of section 30. The Schedule to this Order"—
if my hon. Friends can follow which order we are now talking about—
contains amendments to the 1987 Order"—
if we can remember which order we are talking about—
which are consequential upon the implementation of the. Companies Act 1989 ('the 1989 Act'). Part I of the Schedule, which comes into force on 21st February 1990, amends the entry relating to section 447 of the Companies Act 1985 (Secretary of State's powers to require production of documents) and designates functions under sections 83, 84 and 88 of the 1989 Act"—
I defy, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, or anybody else to remember which 1989 Act we are now talking about—
(powers exercisable to assist overseas regulatory authorities). Part II of the Schedule to this Order, which comes into force on 15th March 1990, contains amendments relating to functions under the Financial Services Act 1986.


If that is supposed to be an explanatory note, we need to send some of our officials on a course in plain English.

Mr. Cohen: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that he and the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) may be on dangerous ground by criticising the explanatory note? I was a member of a Statutory Instruments Committee, with my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall), that considered official secrets. When we criticised the explanatory note, the Home Office Minister said that he had written it himself. Perhaps we could be told whether the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department wrote this explanatory note which, as the hon. Members for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) and for Bristol, North-West have said, is gobbledegook. If the Minister wrote it, they will be on dangerous ground for having criticised the grammatical efforts of their own Minister.

Mr. Butterfill: At the risk of being proved wrong, my hon. Friend the Minister's command of the English language is a model of clarity and eloquence. Therefore, I am confident that the explanatory note was not drafted by him personally. No doubt he will confirm that when he responds to the debate.

Mr. Stern: To pursue this line of argument, does my hon. Friend agree that we shall soon be demanding an explanatory note to the explanatory note of instruments of this nature? I am not sure that either my hon. Friend or I would wish public expenditure to be increased to such an extent.

Mr. Butterfill: I should be the last person to wish public expenditure to be increased unnecessarily. However, this explanatory note could have been much clearer and longer so as to assist hon. Members in their examination of the order.
Part I, paragraph 2, of the schedule refers to
functions of following persons in assisting overseas regulatory authorities".
Will the Minister clarify that my understanding of the paragraph is correct? I thought that it enabled the Secretary of State to rule that information would not be made available to a member of the public if it should properly be withheld to allow the investigation of fraud by an overseas regulatory authority.
It is an important power. If that is what the paragraph means, I support it. If that is not what it means, I believe that such a power should be included in the legislation. International fraud is becoming more common. The United Kingdom's financial services market is free and is extremely valuable to this country. It earns for the United Kingdom a vast amount of money in the form of invisible earnings, and I should be the last to want to lose them.
The corollary to an international market is that, with modern communications and modern means of data transmission, fraud is that much easier to perpetrate and that much more difficult to detect. Serious international fraud can be defeated only if the regulatory authorities in the countries concerned can co-operate in defeating it. I hope that that is what is intended by the paragraph, and that the order will give effect to that intention.
On part II of the schedule, like my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) I am somewhat puzzled about paragraph 3, which extends the previous entry for
rules, guidance, arrangements or restrictions
and substitutes for that
rules, statements of principle, regulations, codes of practice, guidance, arrangements or practices".
I am not sure—nor will many other hon. Members be—why that extension needs to be made, what its practical effect on the denial of access will be and why those activities need to be protected as that section purports to protect them.
Paragraph 5, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall), deals with the exemption of advertisements. Am I correct in assuming that it relates to the section of the Financial Services Act which regulates advertisements so that they do not mislead the public and improperly induce people to make investments? If that were the case, it would be entirely proper for investigations into the exemption of advertisements to proceed in a way that did not alert those being investigated. But it is not entirely clear to me, and I suspect that it may not be entirely clear to other hon. Members here this evening, so it would be most helpful if my hon. Friend could explain that in more detail.
Having asked some specific questions about the effect of the order, let me say a few words about the general philosophical approach which has been mentioned by hon. Members on all sides of the House this evening. As always, there is a conflict between the need to protect the public from fraud and misfeasance and plain incompetence on the part of certain authorities and the need to give the individual the right to access held about him on any givem file. We need to draw a very fine line.
Hon. Members who have spoken this evening, including my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest and certainly Opposition Members, would go a lot further than I would. If we are talking about freedom of information, which has been the subject of much of our debate, I urge some caution. It is not always in the public interest for all information to be disclosed.
If we want to see the effects of a full right to information, we need only look at what happens in the United States, where everything in the process of government is open to public scrutiny. The effect is a politicised civil service. When the President of the United States and the Administration change, the new President changes the civil service, because he cannot do otherwise than have with him his political allies. That would be the regrettable effect if the right to information were pursued to its ultimate conclusion in Britain.
Without wishing to flatter those in Whitehall who may be listening to the debate, one of the great assets of the British constitution is the impartiality of the Civil Service and the knowledge that civil servants may give advice to Ministers in confidence and protect their professional position as independent and impartial advisers to Government. We have the balance right in requiring the Government to account to the House for their actions and not to require civil servants to account for their actions. But I fear that what has been proposed this evening, particularly by the Opposition, could have that effect, and I genuinely believe that it would be a sad day for British democracy if that were to happen.
I am also concerned about the general tenor of some of the speeches from the Opposition. Opposition Members said that the right of an individual to inspect any file that may be held on him, for whatever purpose, is more important than some of the purposes in the order before the House. I cannot accept that. Section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 states that its purpose is to protect the
public against financial loss due to dishonesty, incompetence or malpractice by persons concerned in the provision of banking, insurance, investment or other financial services or in the management of companies or to the conduct of discharged or undischarged bankrupts.
I cannot see how we can afford to deny the public the protection that may be needed in the investigation of those activities simply because it may prejudice the rights of one citizen to obtain access to data held on him. Once again, I call in aid the Barlow Clowes case, which is directly relevant to this debate.

Mr. Randall: I thought that we had had a considerable discourse on the need to have a balance between access to information and the need at times to restrict access to information so that investigations can take place.

Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman said that, but I differ from him on where he would strike that balance. The hon. Gentleman was erring on the side of protecting the right of the individual to have access to information instead of erring on the side of the investigation of fraud and malpractices which I believe is more important.

Mr. Randall: With respect, the hon. Gentleman is drawing the wrong conclusion, and I said nothing that could lead him to reach that conclusion. My point was that none of us in the House tonight can assess whether the Government have gone too far in compiling the list of restrictions. I do not know whether they have, and I challenge whether the hon. Gentleman knows. I believe that the Government may have erred on the side of secrecy simply because that is the general ethos of British society and certainly the position in Whitehall.

Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman compounds my suspicions about his approach to the issue. He suggests that the Government would err on the side of secrecy when we are investigating matters of the utmost gravity for the protection of the public. I would not apologise for that. If it is necessary to protect the public from fraud and swindlers—I do not suggest that the hon. Gentleman would ever be a swindler's friend, by any stretch of the imagination—the balance should lie with the protection of the public as a whole rather than with the protection of a single individual. The protection of the public as a whole must, by definition, be more important than the right of a single individual, however important the rights of that individual may be.
If there is any doubt about the issue, we must always protect the public as a whole, although on occasion that may work to the detriment of the individual. That may be the price that we have to pay in a democracy for adequate protection, particularly when we are dealing with people who are capable of perpetrating vast frauds and swindles on an international scale. That protection is very important when we are dealing with extremely sophisticated operators who can switch money all over the world at the press of a computer key, and when it is extraordinarily difficult for the police in any one country to investigate anything in any depth.
If we are to defeat that type of international fraud and crime and protect the public in this country and elsewhere—that is the implication of the order—we must err on the side of caution. That may mean that the rights of one individual may occasionally be prejudiced. I would sooner do that than risk thousands of people being swindled.
Once again, I refer to hundreds of my constituents who invested in Barlow Clowes. That case is relevant to the debate, because it involved another overseas regulator. The major losses did not occur with investments in this country, but with overseas investments. The Swiss companies involved were supposedly registered in Geneva, but it turned out that they were not registered at all. They did not even exist legally in Switzerland, yet my constituents sent money to box numbers in Geneva. I think that they were extraordinarily gullible and ill-advised, but they were advised by people in this country whom they thought were reputable. Money was also sent to Gibraltar. We must examine the ability of international regulators to co-operate with one another to defeat such fraud. Without a measure such as this, that will be totally impossible.
I repeat that, if a balance is to be struck between the protection of an individual and the protection of the public as a whole, we must err on the side of caution.

Mr. Cohen: Opposition Members agree that big fraudsters must he investigated and brought before the courts. However, the hon. Gentleman's argument is the same as that in favour of making all police records exempt, being subject access exemptions under the Data Protection Act 1984. The trouble is that there is no way of rectifying an abuse if incorrect information is placed on a person's file and he is subsequently badly treated. He cannot appeal. There must be an opportunity to set up appeal procedures. The Data Protection Registrar is like an ombudsman in these cases—investigating but keeping strict confidentiality. That would not interfere with investigations into potential big crime, but it would protect the individual. Why can we not have both?

Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman's remarks worry me slightly. He is saying that we should not exempt police records or the records kept by regulators, for fear that that might prejudice an individual's right to know what information is being held about him. If such an investigation relates to a major fraud, which may be an international fraud, that is the price that society must pay if we are to be protected against that activity. There is no alternative to that protection. Therefore, I shall support the order.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Opposition Members agree with much of what the hon. Member for Bournemouh, West (Mr. Butterfill) said about the international aspects of this subject. It is extremely complex and increasingly important. I asked the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin), who is piloting his Computer Misuse Bill through the House, whether I could be on the Committee that considers the Bill. I look forward to Wednesday mornings in Committee, because these matters are important.
In preparation for the debate on the computer hacking Bill, on 5 January I tabled several questions to the Home Office, giving it six and a half weeks to answer. I make no


complaint about the nature of the answers, because it is a delicate matter. It pertains directly to assisting overseas regulatory authorities.
The first question that I tabled on 5 January for answer on 19 February was:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to include provisions in his computer hacking Bill to promote safeguards to ensure that information stored in a DNA databank would not be open to misuse.
The Minister, who is at the Dispatch Box, replied:
No. The Data Protection Act 1984"—
that is one of the Acts that we are discussing—
already provides appropriate safeguards against misuse of personal data held on a computer database. These include a requirement that the data user must take security measures againt unathorised access.
It is one thing to say that the data user must take security measures, but it is easier said than done. Does the Home Office have any evidence that serious measures along those lines are being taken? I recall that the week before last, members of the all-party group for the retail trade went to a famous store, which I think should be nameless. The store managers were open about saying what mayhem had been created when the computer of just one store was illicitly entered. We need to take any possible measures that would stop that type of—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is preparing himself for other debates dealing with hacking. Will he look at the order that we are considering, and bring himself more into line with it?

Mr. Dalyell: My comments come under assisting "overseas regulatory authorities".

Madam Deputy Speaker: That is quite true, but I fear that the hon. Gentleman was moving considerably away from that. I have been listening carefully.

Mr. Dalyell: I shall come back, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The next question that I tabled was:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consideration he is giving to the use of DNA material unrelated to crime.
I should like to put it on the record that the reply was:
DNA testing has been used to establish relationship in immigration and paternity cases.
That work is excellent and wholly acceptable—and here we come to the "but"; I do not intend to speak for anyone other than myself, and this is a personal view—but I believe that authorities are entitled to use all the latest techniques of blood-testing in the fight against crime of any sort, and that includes fraud.

Mr. Stern: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Dalyell: I would rather not give way until the hon. Gentleman has heard precisely the nature of my argument and then I shall, of course, give way to him.
I also tabled the question:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has for a DNA data bank for use in the fight against serious crime; what type of offences will be covered; what type of sample will need to be taken; and whether types of sample such as blood or hair-roots will be taken without the consent of the individual concerned.

I know that therein lies the rub. I know how difficult this is, and I also know that some of my hon. Friends take a different view—

Mr. Stern: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

Mr. Dalyell: In a moment.
I also tabled the question:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his policy towards legal powers to take samples, such as blood or hair-roots, in respect of screening people who there may be no reason to suspect of involvement in the offence.
There could be a whole range of offences, one of which could certainly be fraud. I give way now to the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern).

Mr. Stern: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has raised one "rub" as he calls it, about where the order might bite. However, there is another rub as well, and if I am lucky enough to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope to expand on this later. The hon. Gentleman is referring to data in a DNA bank being used for the detection of crime. Does he agree that we also have to determine the nature of the state that is determining that crime? Does he agree that to supply information through the order to the regulatory authorities of, say, France, is completely different from supplying exactly the same information under exactly the same circumstances to the regulatory authorities of, for example, Romania before the recent revolution? We are empowering the authorities to decide on the nature of the regime, as well as the nature of the crime.

Mr. Dalyell: I am not sure that that is not unreasonable. I am not being led astray or leading anyone else astray.However, the hon. Gentleman raises an important point. There must be a value judgment of to whom the information should be given. Our European partners are our partners and, as the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West said, the measure has international implications.
The next question that I asked is also relevant. It was:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consult the Law Lords on the question which would arise if a doctor was asked to take a blood sample without consent, the question being how to obtain a sample from someone who refuses consent, and may physically resist having a sample taken, and on the question of the susceptibility of evidence obtained under duress by the courts; and if he will make a statement.
The Under-Secretary of State replied:
My right hon. and learned Friend is still considering the issues set out in the letter which my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State"—
that is the noble Lord Ferrers—
sent to the hon. Member on 7 December.
It was an extremely interesting and perceptive letter. He continued:
He is currently consulting the British Medical Association and the Association of Police Surgeons on the medical ethics of taking blood samples without consent from suspects in police detention and from convicted offenders. My right hon. and learned Friend will consider what further consultations are necessary in the light of their response. He has no plans to amend the law to enable the police to take blood or other samples from people who are not suspects or convicted offenders and who do not consent. The police are free to ask people to provide samples voluntarily.


Although it may be inconvenient and awkward, if hon. Members ask questions such as I have asked on this subject, they should not sit on the fence and pretend that it is entirely up to the Government to come to conclusions.
This evening I have had an opportunity to put my two ha'po'rth into the argument. I have given the matter considerable reflection—otherwise I should not have written the letters that prompted the letter of 7 December. I should not have asked those questions unless I had taken the view that it is pretty legitimate to use all techniques known to modern science, many of which are developing all the time, to pinpoint crime.
When does the Minister expect the discussions with the police surgeons and various other authorities to be finalised? I hope that when they are finalised, a hard line will be taken on the use of every available scientific, DNA and other technique. It is extremely cost-serving. If one takes that hard line, there is an argument for going ahead with one of the recommendations of Gordon Wasserman's committee, which was set up by the Home Office, that there should be an independent forensic unit to which those who get into trouble or who find themselves prosecuted could appeal.
I have argued elsewhere that the forensic unit might well be based at the university of Strathclyde—[Laughter]—where distinguished work has been done on an academic base for the whole of the United Kingdom. I hear my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) laugh. If that work had been done in Hull, I should have said the same thing. But he is not my constituent and nor do I have many constituents—I could probably count them on the fingers of one hand—who work in the university of Strathclyde. I am an east-coast Scot, and east-coast Scots are different from west-coast Scots.
There is a strong argument for using every forensic technique available for this and other types of crime. After the discussions with the police authorities, I look forward to an announcement that the Government feel that every sort of technique should be available. I for one undertake to support and vote for any measure designed to take advantage of every scientific technique available, even if some of my colleagues, understandably, scream about civil liberties.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I ask hon. Members who wish to speak to look at the explanatory note and I remind them that this is a narrow debate. The order is consequential on the Companies Act 1989 and the Financial Services Act 1986. Comments must be pertinent to that. Otherwise, I shall rule hon. Members out of order.

Mr. Michael Stern: I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your comments. My remarks will be brief.
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) directly, and to take his argument a stage further. Instead of supporting him, as I do, by simply saying that all forensic and other techniques should he used in solving crime and apprehending offenders, I shall explore the nature of the crime that we are considering in deciding whether the techniques should be applied. I apologise to the House for the fact that some

of my examples will come, not from my work in the House, but from work outside. I have a declared interest as a partner in a firm of chartered accountants, and the examples arise from my work there.
The explanatory note contains four words which in principle are anodyne, but which in practice contain a dangerous extension of powers—"assist overseas regulatory authorities". I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) that when we are dealing with fraud in general and financial fraud in particular it is necessary to consider it on a worldwide basis. Recent fraudsters, as in the Barlow Clowes operation and the Dover plan, would not have been caught or brought to justice without international co-operation. We must applaud international cooperation.
We are dealing with fraud that takes place in the context of our western European society and values. There are other frauds, or frauds as they would be defined elsewhere in the world, which are not so clearly pigeonholed. For example, how will the powers provided in amending the data protection regulations in the light of the Companies Act 1989 be applied where a person appears to have committed a detailed and marked offence against the exchange control regulations of an African country? That will cause considerable moral problems to Opposition Members. Many African countries maintain and impose severe penalties of imprisonment for breaches of their exchange control regulations.
South Africa, for example, has one of the most vicious exchange control regimes in the world. Do we intend to give powers to the Data Protection Registrar to shop someone who has broken the South African exchange control regulations? Many people in that country are desperate to get out, but they are held there by the force and the threat of force implied in the South African exchange control regulations.
In case the House believes that such stringent regulations are peculiar to South Africa, I should say that Nigeria operates similarly strict exchange control regulations. People equally fear being shopped by other regulatory authorities for breaking those Nigerian regulations. I have dealt with refugees from both those countries; those who have broken the respective exchange control regulations have a strong fear of violence.

Mr. Jeremy Hanley: My hon. Friend has mentioned a most tricky point—irregularities in a regime that most of us regard as repressive and in need of reform. Does he agree, however, that we might be forced by necessity to co-operate in certain actions on behalf of the regulators of a country, be it South Africa or any other, if we are to receive reciprocal assistance from that country in our search for malefactors who are residents or national of this country and who have taken investors' funds to South Africa or elsewhere? Therefore, it might be necessary to co-operate with the undesirables to achieve the greater end.

Mr. Stern: I accept that. My hon. Friend has raised something about which the order says nothing, when it should.
If we are seeking to co-operate with, for example, South Africa to search out and to bring to justice a fraudster currently living in Europe, I accept that we shall get such


co-operation from South Africa only if we offer reciprocal co-operation to enable that regime to bring to justice a fraudster who originates in South Africa.
There is a distinction to be drawn, however, which is not drawn in the order. Although I should be happy to see regulations permitting us to co-operate with the South African regime on matters of fraud, I would not want our regulations to permit the British authorities to co-operate with that regime on matters relating to exchange control. South Africa possesses such control, whereas we, as a result of Government action, do not.
I am looking for some assurance not only about the Data Protection Registrar's entitlement to assist overseas regulatory authorities against the apparent wishes of the individual, but about how the registrar will be able to discriminate between one particular type of offence and another. We should consider, as a matter of civil liberty, whether we should give such undisclosed powers to the registrar so that, without reference to Parliament, he can discriminate in such cases.

Mr. Hanley: Perhaps I am wrong, but I felt that the power was granted to the Secretary of State and, through him, to the Data Protection Registrar. Ultimately, it is the Secretary of State who must sanction the decision. The registrar, worthy and honourable though he is, would need to refer for guidance in such cases to the Secretary of State.

Mr. Stern: My hon. Friend is quite correct, but in an open society can we not go further? Are we not entitled to look to the Secretary of State to declare to the House when he has exercised these blanket powers of discrimination which the order offers him? I should be grateful for some reassurance from my hon. Friend about exactly how—perhaps in the Data Protection Registrar's annual report or some other way—it might be possible for the Secretary of State to report to the House on how the powers should be used.
I quoted an example of repressive African regimes. I shall quote another example that is germane to the debate in the light of earlier references to the Barlow Clowes affair. There has recently been a belief among many overseas investors who have chosen to invest in this country through Gibraltar that the British authorities, in the light of the Barlow Clowes affair, have been attempting to hound them. I would be very worried indeed if, in passing this order, which contains the powers to assist overseas regulatory authorities, we gave the Secretary of State powers, through the Data Protection Registrar, to make undue inquiries of perfectly genuine investors who happen to use Gibraltar as a means of investing in this country. Many such investors feel that too much of that sort of thing has been going on already.
The joke in Gibraltar at present is that, whereas a few years ago it was believed that, if this country sent gunboats to Gibraltar, they would be to assist Gibraltar against possible invasion from Spain, the belief in Gibraltar now, in view of the arguments over the airport, is that, if gunboats were sent to Gibraltar, they would be to repress the Gibraltar Government.

Mr. Hanley: Surely not.

Mr. Steen: That is the view that is currently held.
There is considerable suspicion that the powers given in the order could be used with insufficient discretion, of which Parliament might not be apprised. That could happen unless some mechanism were built in to advise Parliament of the way in which those powers were so used.
There is one aspect in which the order does not go far enough. I accept that this is a problem generally with data protection legislation. The order applies only to data as defined in the Data Protection Act. There has been a growing belief in the House for a number of years that, as matters have moved on since the original Act, the definition of "data", and therefore the definition within the order, is inadequate.
We have had many debates in the House about, for example, medical records. They are probably the most personal and potentially most damaging record about any individual. They are not covered by the Act and, quite rightly, will not be covered by the Act under this order, because the order relates solely to financial matters. I wonder whether, in considering the order, we should look again at the extent to which financial information about an individual or company will be exempt from the order because it comes outwith the strict definition of data as laid down in the Act.
How many times have we heard of—and in our professional lives seen—the bank manager, at the end of an interview, write down, "This man is a con merchant"? That record is based on the opinion that the bank manager formed during the interview; it will stay on a personal or company file and will not be open to regulation under the Act because it is not data—it is not in technically permanent form.

Mr. Hanley: Being a renowned chartered accountant, my hon. Friend may well remember the case in which a certain watch was seized by taxation officials because engraved on the back of it was a Swiss bank account number. The defence of those who owned the watch was that it was not data as defined under the Act. It was not a record: it was a watch with an engraving. The courts said that, because the watch was engraved with information, it could be regarded as a record. Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that perhaps the courts can take such matters into account as the need arises?

Mr. Stern: I should like to think that my hon. Friend was right. However, I have been advised that it is not yet open to the courts to extend the definition of data in that way. I would like reassurance from the Minister about whether such an extension of "data" could be made.

Mr. Waller: My hon. Friend is hitting on an important point by referring to the fact that we are discussing electronically recorded data protected under the Act. Does he agree, however, that, if we did not provide an exemption of the sort suggested in this order, computers could not be used in the pursuit of crime, because of the danger that recorded material could be made available to the subject of that pursuit? To pursue international or national crime efficiently, it is necessary and sensible to have exemptions of the sort that we are discussing.

Mr. Stern: My hon. Friend is right. I hope that neither he nor the House will take my remarks as suggesting any doubt of the need for an order of this sort. I merely maintain that any order of this sort must be drawn as


tightly as possible, and applied with the greatest discretion. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will assure me that there will be mechanisms to ensure such discretion.
On the basis of experience, I must point out, finally, that orders of this nature change the reality in which they operate by their very passage. I remember that, some years ago, a similar order was passed by the United States Congress, laying down regulations for United States investors in Swiss banks. I came across this example because I was advising a Panamanian investor in the United Kingdom who happened to invest, perfectly legitimately, in a Swiss bank.
The Swiss banks wrote to all their customers telling them that the regulations had just been passed by Congress and that they would be obliged within six months under Swiss law to disclose certain information under the regulations, which were part of the US-Swiss convention. The banks strongly urged their customers to remove their accounts if they felt that they did not wish certain information, which they listed, to be disclosed to the US authorities. These letters were sent, couched in the strongest possible terms, to all customers, whatever the source of their funds and whether or not the banks knew that source.
Is not my hon. Friend the Minister concerned that, by giving additional powers to assist overseas regulatory authorities, he may be causing widespread ripples with the stone that he has cast into the pool tonight?

Mr. Michael Brown: One opens a can of worms when one goes back to the primary legislation from which a statutory instrument flows. I agree with the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) on the explanatory memorandum to the order. In all my time in the House I have never found it necessary, when reading a statutory instrument, to find about four previous references to help the House to arrive at a decision.
First, I went to the Library to find section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984, the source of this statutory instrument and the order that was introduced in 1987 and which this one amends. The House would do well to remember why we have to have such statutory instruments. Section 30(1) of the 1984 Act, which comes under part IV headed
Regulation of financial services etc",
states:
Personal data held for the purpose of discharging statutory fuctions to which this section applies are exempt from the subject access provisions in any case in which the application of those provisions to the data would be likely to prejudice the proper discharge of those functions.
That is the source of all our problems about data protection, the order that is before the House and the one that was introduced in 1987. Section 30 (2) of the 1984 Act states:
This section applies to any functions designated for the purposes of this section by an order made by the Secretary of State,".
When the Home Secretary framed the Data Protection Act, I do not think that he had any idea of the number and scope of the statutory instruments that it would require.
I went to the Library earlier today to look up the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987 which this statutory instrument amends. I should like to make an urgent plea

for the convenience of all hon. Members. The Library staff are quite expert at looking up references, but it took them a long time to trace the statutory instrument that we are amending. In future when an explanatory memorandum to a statutory instrument is brought before the House, it should have upon it the number of the statutory instrument to which it refers. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) will support that plea.

Mr. Hanley: My hon. Friend and I were in the Library together trying to find the references. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Vote Office should have copies of the primary legislation at least on the day that an order is discussed? My hon. Friend and I were both in the Vote Office today and, as he knows, there was no copy of the Companies Act 1989 or the Companies Act 1985.
They are large volumes of weighty legislation, but surely two or three copies of the primary Act should be available so that we can refer to them before discussing such important issues.

Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. He and I were reduced to photocopying the relevant extracts of the primary Act.
We are amending a statutory instrument that has about 12 pages and discussing an order to amend one line on one page. Will there be other statutory instruments to take up the time of the House to amend that statutory instrument of 1987?

Mr. Bob Cryer: I am pleased to note the hon. Gentleman's new-found and unprecedented interest in statutory instruments. Some of us have been examining them for much longer than the hon. Gentleman. Did he vote for or against the primary legislation which gives powers to the Secretary of State?

Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman is right to ask that question, because he was not in the House between 1983 and 1987. He and other hon. Members will know that I have frequently taken an interest, as the hon. Gentleman has done, in secondary legislation. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman serves on Standing Committees, but whenever I do so, I invariably raise points—sometimes to the chagrin of the Whip—regarding any clauses that—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman makes a great defence for himself, but perhaps he will return to the subject of the order.

Mr. Brown: The order makes an important amendment to a comprehensive statutory instrument. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure in future that when the House is asked to amend data protection legislation, the resultant measure is consolidated into one Act of Parliament.

Mr. Randall: With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker. The debate has been most interesting. The order is complex and badly drafted, but our debate was fundamental to the freedoms of the people of this country, and to ensuring that our institutions operate effectively and efficiently in wiping out corruption arid malpractice wherever possible.
The essence of the debate has been the balance between protecting civil liberties and the freedom of individuals to


see files about them, and at times restricting availability to information, to ensure that proper investigations into corruption can be undertaken.
I hope that, whenever we review the Data Protection Act 1984, those principles will be kept in the forefront of our minds.

Mr. Peter Lloyd: The debate has been thorough and exhaustive, and the most pertinent intervention was made by you, Madam Deputy Speaker, when you said that the scope of the order is extremely narrow. So it is. I sympathise with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall), who referred to the complicated nature of the matter and sought an explanatory memorandum. That request was made by other hon. Members on both sides of the House. Having read the order myself, I understand the point that they make.

Mr. Hanley: I am sorry to disagree with my hon. Friend, but although the order may be narrow in scope, as he says, does he not agree that it is extremely wide in its effect and has international implications? The measure is not so narrow as to be unimportant, but is wide enough to be extremely vital to the protection of investors in this country and worldwide.

Mr. Lloyd: I did not say that the order is not important, for I agree with my hon. Friend that it is. However, the changes that it makes are relatively narrow in scope, even though they provide a very necessary additional opportunity for my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to use his powers to combat malpractice.
It was clear that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West was asking not so much for an explanatory memorandum on the order as for the Data Protection Act 1984, and the Data Protection (Regulation of Finance Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) (Amendment) Order 1987 to be brought into line with the Companies Act 1989, which made it necessary to change some of the 1987 order.
The order does not extend the list of categories of information that may be withheld. Many hon. Members have the impression that it does. If it did that, I would have followed their argument. The order changes only one part of the 1984 Act, and that was identified by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West as part II, paragraph 5. I shall return to that in a few moments.
The balance of the law under these orders is very clear, and was set by the principal legislation, which it is not our place to discuss this evening, as it was exhaustively discussed at the time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris), who is not with us at the moment, was on the Committee which considered the Data Protection Act 1984, and I suspect that he has the advantage over most of us, with the exception of my hon. Friend the deputy Patronage Secretary, who was also a member of the Committee.

Mr. Michael Brown: My hon. Friend rightly draws the House's attention to the fact that nothing is changed by what the House does tonight. We are merely tidying up, following the passage of the Companies Act 1989. That is why I strongly believe that now is the time for the powers

that be to consolidate everything to do with data protection—the Data Protection Act 1984 and the Companies Act 1989. Is the time not coming when someone should consolidate all the legislation on data protection into one statute?

Mr. Lloyd: Many parts of our legislation could usefully be consolidated, but it is extremely time-consuming for the draftsmen and for the House. I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making, but I cannot promise that consolidation can be carried out at an early date.
I disagree when my hon. Friend says that the Order is merely tidying up. It is consequential on the legislation, and it does two important things. First, it makes it possible for my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to call experts, apart from officials in his Department, to investigate certain data. That is only sensible because the complexity, particularly in financial matters, is so great that one needs to call those people with special knowledge to assist—whether they are accountants, specialist lawyers or people with experience of banking. All those people will be bound by the rules of secrecy, and they will be operating on his behalf, seeking information and understanding so that the Home Secretary may use it for the purposes determined by the Act.
The second important thing that the Order will do is to enable the Home Secretary to make the information available to overseas regulators who have signed the convention, when he believes that it will be in the interests of uncovering malpractice. He does not have to supply the information, but he may decide to do so, and it is very much in our interests that we supply information to help investigators of fraud and malpractice by overseas officials who have powers in that area. It is also very much in our interests to receive such information in return.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) was right to draw our attention to Barlow Clowes, because that is a good example of alleged fraud or irregularity transcending international boundaries. In that case, it was necessary to be able to exchange information across frontiers, and it was a pity that we were not able to do that earlier. Some of the difficulties that investors have suffered might then have been avoided.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West was extremely worried that what might be acceptable in general might be oppressive in practice. I remind him that the registrar is there and is required under the Act to keep an eye on the way in which the provisions are implemented and to make an annual report to Parliament.
I said that I would return to the question of advertising in paragraph 5 of the schedule. The provision now covers details of advertisements, particularly in unlisted securities where fraudulent claims may be the start of a malpractice that needs to be followed up. The order extends slightly the amount of information that may be withheld in such circumstances. I doubt whether the hon. Gentleman would want to avoid that. The Labour party usually emphasises that fraud in the City and in business should be pursued actively and hard, and I am sure that he would not want to deny the correct authorities powers to do that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest, who served on the Committee, wondered about the additional expertise—a point that I have mentioned. He talked about codes of practice. The codes of practice referred to in the order enable the Home Secretary to give guidance and indications to a primary regulator, such as the Securities


and Investments Board, on how to conduct itself in the matter of the information that may be withheld. The order does not extend this information but gives guidance that is necessary to ensure that it may be obtained and used for the proper purposes.
Let me answer the questions of the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen). I have explained that the order does not extend any of the items of information that can be withheld, except in the small area that I have outlined. The hon. Gentleman wanted the information that may be withheld set out clearly, but then went on to complain that it was set out extremely clearly and in great detail. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. I agree with him that, when the information is set out in great detail so that one can see precisely what categories are included, there is quite a lot to get through, but that is part of the openness for which the hon. Gentleman called. He asked whether the registrar was content with the order: he was consulted and was certainly content.
I think that I have replied to most of the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West, who wanted to ensure that the philosophical approach was sensible and balanced, and I believe that it is. The basic philosophy is contained in the original Acts, which were exhaustively debated.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) referred to several questions that he has tabled to Home Office Ministers. I cannot add to the answers that we gave him at the time, but I am glad that he is determined to chase us to ensure that information—especially relating to DNA and other means of identifying and getting to the root of particular sorts of crime—is thoroughly used and pursued. He is right in that. We are aware of what the hon. Gentleman seeks, and we agree with him, but I hope that he will accept that this is a complex matter and that discussions need to be carried through to ensure not merely that we make the best use of that avenue of information but that we make use of it in such a way that it does not impinge unnecessarily and in an unwarranted manner on the rights of individuals.

Mr. Dalyell: I realise that this is a complex matter, but I should not have thought that it would take six weeks to

provide an answer to the question. Does the Home Office accept that it has a responsibility to make a fairly early statement on the report by Gordon Wasserman—one o its senior officials—on related forensic issues? The sooner that happens, the better it will be for forensic science. Some of us recognise that there are real difficulties over recruiting forensic scientists. The Government ought to pay regard to that problem.

Mr. Lloyd: I understand the hon. Gentleman's paint, but it is not a matter on which I ought to comment this evening.
It is a narrow order. It makes three changes that are, I believe, uncontroversial. Many questions have been asked and suspicions about the original legislation have been aroused. However, suspicions have not been aroused about the three changes that the order makes. Therefore, I happily commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) (Amendment) Order 1990, which was laid before this House on 30th January, be approved.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 102(5), (Standing Committees on European Community Documents).

ANIMAL WASTE

That this House takes note of Community Document No. 9728/89 relating to veterinary rules on animal waste and prevention of pathogens in feedstuffs; and supports the Government's intention to secure an outcome which provides for the continued availability of a hygienic and practical means of disposal of animal waste.—[Mr. Dorrell.]

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5), (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.)

HILL LIVESTOCK

That the draft Hill Livestock (Compensatory Allowances) (Amendment) Regulations 1990, which were laid before this House on 31st January, be approved.—[Mr. Dorrell.]

Concessionary Television Licences

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dorrell.]

Mr. Peter Temple-Morris: It is a great pleasure for me to raise the subject of sheltered housing and concessionary television licences. Earlier this evening I shrewdly suspected, and hoped, that I might be able to go home for dinner, but I underestimated the absorbing interest of data protection. Never in so short a time have I seen so many knowledgeable colleagues arrive in the Chamber—no doubt galvanised by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department—to participate in such a distinguished fashion in a highly interesting debate.
I am grateful for the support of many hon. Members. Many of my colleagues have raised the subject in Adjournment debates. Not frequently do we find in constituency after constituency represented by colleagues on both sides of the House the anomalies with which I hope to deal. There is, therefore, much concern about the subject.
My purpose is to find a way round over-rigid implementation by the Home Office-in the process becoming more bureaucratic than is strictly necessary-of the May 1988 regulations. I shall concentrate on those regulations and will pray in aid some constituency cases to illustrate the anomalies. There are many similar cases throughout the country about which I have heard and regarding which I have received letters from councils of all political persuasions. At a time when the Government are not enjoying universal popularity, we ought to concentrate on annoying the minimum number of people over such small measures. Sadly, that is not the case here.
I intend to refer briefly to the unsatisfactory state of affairs over wider concessions, causing unnecessary political damage, to which I have already referred. Successive Governments, whatever they might have done in opposition or as individual Members of Parliament, have never conceded free television licences for all pensioners. I do not urge that now and I do not propose to argue one way or the other, but as there was no overall granting of free television licences, quite rightly, concessions were granted to residential homes and to sheltered accommodation with communal services. That arrangement has continued for 20 years, and as with any such arrangement, there has been a constant challenge for the enlargement of those concessions.
We then reach the Armageddon for the Home Office in the case of Kirklees metropolitan borough council against the Home Office of 1987, which is known as the Kirklees decision. It meant that visiting housing stewards and the presence of an alarm system in mainstream housing constituted a communal facility and therefore at least potential eligibility for the concession. Immediately, panic rose from the bottom floor to the top floor of the Home Office as it was realised that those concessions could go way beyond the Government's original intention some 20 years before, which the Home Office now sticks to, and which is for schemes
equivalent or comparable to residential homes.
That led to the May 1988 revised regulations.
The Government's reaction has not been commendable. They have been unprepared to grant a total

concession to the elderly—I would not quibble with that—and they could not withdraw from existing concessions for obvious political reasons, so instead of minimising the anomalies and making the best of a worthy situation, which dictates that concessions should be granted, the Government decided on extremely restrictive regulations of the existing concessions—the May 1988 revised regulations—giving the absolute minimum and holding back everything they could. The result has been rigidity, anomaly and, politically, the worst of all worlds.
I shall not discuss the May 1988 regulations in any great detail. There are four regulations and I shall concentrate on the fourth, although for the information of the House, I shall refer briefly to the others. The first qualification for concession refers to accommodation specifically provided for retired people over the age of 65 and certain categories of disablement. The second qualification is a resident warden or one who works for at least 30 hours a week. The third is a communal facility within a common boundary and the fourth, on which I wish to concentrate, is:
There shall be a group of at least four dwellings with a common and exclusive boundary encompassing all and only the accommodation.
That is God's gift to anomaly. I shall criticise it specifically in a moment, but first I have a few general criticisms of the overall picture.
The Government are misguided and appear mean in their institution and rigid interpretation of the regulations. I regret that the unsatisfactory background, the unfairness and getting the balance wrong are not wholly restricted to the subject of this Adjournment debate. It is pretty obvious, bearing in mind the increased numbers of elderly people, that there is a tendency for more sheltered housing to be built or converted from mainstream housing by local councils, particularly in urban areas, although I represent a rural constituency. That is the worry to the Home Office of the Kirklees decision.
There are an increasing number of scattered units of accommodation for the elderly on many large estates across the country in the midst of mainstream housing. Instead of facing up to that and spending a little more money—and therefore not having to face this Adjournment debate tonight—the Government have retreated into their shell. They have performed a kind of Custer's last stand over what they claim to be the original intention of the scheme, which is now outdated.
I cannot say that I shall play Sitting Bull to my hon. Friend the Minister's General Custer, but as my hon. Friend leaves this place—we must recall that General Custer did not leave—I hope that he will be prepared to consider the matter and perhaps have a word with my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office. I believe that this is a matter more for Ministers than for the civil servants who loyally carry out their duties and who, when they are told to be restrictive, are—and with due deference and respect to my hon. Friend the Minister, no one can be more restrictive than the Home Office or, regrettably, be so more effectively.
Many anomalies have been drawn to my attention since notice of this Adjournment debate appeared on the Order Paper. There is widespread concern not only from Leominster district council, but from the National Federation of Housing Associations, Age Concern, the Consumers Association and district councils, which have contacted me from such places as far apart as Malden and Camden.

Mr. Tim Devlin: What about Stockton?

Mr. Temple-Morris: Yes, and from Stockton.
I want to refer to two anomalies in Leominster, with which my hon. Friend the Minister is familiar. They are examples of this ridiculous anomaly, and I hope that the House will forgive me if I mention them specifically. The first relates to Burton gardens and Burton crescent in Wembley. The accommodation there is now a sheltered scheme and it has communal facilities, a warden and a clearly demarcated section on the housing estate. However, before the warden and alarm were installed and before restrictions were imposed in 1986 making it much more difficult for tenants to buy that type of council housing, the bold tenant—no doubt encouraged by the Government—of 25 Burton crescent decided to buy his old people's accommodation. He duly did that and became the only private owner on that estate.
At the moment, Burton gardens, which runs into Burton crescent, gets the concession in toto. The part of Burton crescent up to No. 25 also receives the concession I am grateful in that regard to my hon. Friend the Minister, who granted an additional concession to the original adjudication after my first intervention in the matter.
However, no one beyond No. 25, on exactly the same estate, receives the concession. No. 25 is preceded by the odd Nos. 21 and 23. Nos. 21, 23 and 25 are all joined together. They are old people's ground-floor flats in units of three, all joined together. Because Nos. 21 and 23 are joined to No. 25 and separated by a very small car parking space from the earlier numbers that receive the concession, they do not receive it. All the flats above No. 25 do not receive it either.
If that example is frankly ridiculous, then the second example of Cornwall gardens at Tenbury Wells in my constituency is even more so. That is a council-owned site and one turns into it from Berrington road in Tenbury Wells. Where one turns into it, there are two flats. Nos. 7 and 9 Berrington road, which are part of the wholly council-owned site. After those flats there is an entrance and right of way granted by the council to a pub car park. On the other side of that entrance the estate continues. The estate was bought as a whole, is administered as one estate and was built as one. Only that solitary little entrance to the pub car park separates Nos. 7 and 9 from the rest of the estate.
The estate has excellent communal facilities. I enjoyed a nice cup of coffee and some hospitality when I inspected it. Knowing that my hon. Friend the Minister might challenge me and say that I have not been there, I advise him that I went there in January. There is a recreation room, a laundry, a warden, an alarm system and so on.
When the two existing sitting tenants at Nos. 7 and 9 eventually cause a re-let, the full television licence fee, rather than £5, will have to be paid. The Government should do something about that practice, but they do not seem to have learnt the lesson that, if one pleases a few of the people a lot of the time, one will at least make some progress. It is not for me to lecture my hon. Friend the Minister on that matter, and he would not be responsible for it either.
I shall review some possible policies and practical suggestions in a descending scale of generosity. The first is a general concession to all pensioners, a matter on which

the House voted towards the end of the last Parliament, and which I do not press tonight. The second is a concession to all pensioners entitled to housing benefit or a community charge rebate—in other words, whether they are in or out of sheltered housing. The third is a concession to all pensioners living in purpose-built sheltered accommodation. That means the public sector and—an increasing bone of contention, as more and more people spend their last savings on buying sheltered accommoda—tion the private sector also.
The fourth policy, which I recommend to rriy hon. Friend, is a concession to all pensioners living in purpose-built or adapted local authority and/or housing association accommodation. That covers all developments—urban, rural, large and small estates. That represents a logical compromise.
My hon. Friend will forgive me when I say that I do not expect a generous response from him tonight. I will not even press him for one. However, I suggest that we have less rigidity in the application of the May 1988 rules. One method would be by way of ministerial discretion. I expect that my hon. Friend will say that Ministers do not have discretion, and that therefore we are stuck with rules that have been drafted as restrictively as possible.
I have been trying to be constructive. Concentrating on what I have called policy No. 4, I ask my hon. Friend to consider that there shall be a group of at least four dwellings with a common and exclusive boundary encompassing all and only the accommodation. Therefore, a little thing such as the entrance to a pub car park completely ruins those who happen to be caught out on the wrong side of it. I suggest that we should add the words, "save and except where the accommodation is clearly part of a coherent, unified and separate sheltered housing scheme." That would get shot of many anomalies. However, I am afraid that it would not alter the major problems, as that can be done only if we address purpose-built and/or adapted public housing as a whole. If my hon. Friend the Minister will consider that point, we will make progress.
I can imagine the Minister's advisers going to him tomorrow morning, saying "It is a legal nightmare. They will be challenging us here and there. The only way in which we can defend it is to keep within the corral. Minister, you cannot do this or that." It would be nice if, once upon a time, we could see an Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office doing what I want-and, if he viewed the matter reasonably independently, what he also would want.
Therefore, in the name of a little more decency, and certainly in the name of fairness, I commend what I have said and the limited, minimal solution that I have outlined to my hon. Friend.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peter Lloyd): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) on securing this debate and on raising this subject. It is one in which he has taken a persistent and concerned interest on behalf of his constituents, as his detailed promenade down Burton gardens and other local streets, and his other many exchanges with the Home Office, have shown. I am grateful to him for providing a useful opportunity this evening to explain why we changed the


concessionary licence scheme nearly two years ago, and to clear up, I hope, some of the misunderstandings and misconceptions that seem to have arisen since.
I start by explaining briefly how the scheme evolved, and why it became necessary to change it. The scheme was formally established on a statutory basis on 1 January 1969. It was intended to rationalise the television licence requirements in old people's homes. Previously, residents in some homes had been treated as though they were exempt from licensing, while others were required to pay the full licence fee.
The scheme was also intended to cover sheltered housing schemes for pensioners run by local authorities or housing associations which were considered to be directly comparable with old people's homes. At a later date, the scheme was extended to cover disabled or mentally handicapped people living in similar accommodation. The scheme was thus introduced for the best of motives, to correct what was seen as an anomaly. Entitlement was clearly linked to the type of accommodation occupied, and the way in which it was run, rather than to the personal circumstances of the occupant.
Over the years, the number of people benefiting from the concession has steadily increased. When the regulations were changed in May 1988, that number stood at 776,000 people. It has since gone up by over 91,000. So the change was clearly not an effort—certainly not an effective effort—at covert restriction. It sprang from the necessity, after the court action to which I shall refer in a moment, to make what were believed to be the existing rules more coherent and sustainable at law.

Mr. Bob Cryer: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, although I have only a little time.

Mr. Cryer: Does the Minister accept that changes are being made in those statistics even now? Some of my constituents who receive the concession are being told, even at this stage, that it will be withdrawn. Does not this need clarifying?

Mr. Lloyd: It has been clarified. That was the whole purpose of the change. The position was anomalous before, as the court decision suggested. Although some people have lost, undoubtedly a great many more can now benefit.
As I have said, the change sprang from necessity after that court action. Thus, the figure now exceeds 867,000 people, and 80 per cent. of those beneficiaries live in sheltered housing schemes rather than conventional residential homes. It is the application of the regulations to people in sheltered housing—my hon. Friend referred to this specifically—that seems to cause most uncertainty.
As hon. Members will remember, early in 1987 the scheme ran into particular difficulties following a successful High Court action by Kirklees metropolitan borough council. It had sought judicial review of our decision not to issue the licence to the occupants of some council accommodation. We had thought that the employment by the council of officials to visit all council

tenants to collect rent and to sort out housing problems did not constitute a communal facility, as required by the regulations then in force.
The court disagreed, and that judgment has far-reaching implications. It called into question our other interpretation of the regulations—that the accommodation must form groups and be specially provided for pensioners or disabled people.
It quickly became clear that the Kirklees judgment had effectively opened the way for local authorities to bring within the scheme large numbers of people living in what was essentially mainstream housing. By providing some sort of visiting care service or communal alarm system, they could claim that the accommodation was specially provided and formed a group with a communal facility. It was never the intention that the scheme should expand in that way, as I think my hon. Friend will agree, and it would have been very expensive in terms of revenue lost to the BBC.
We therefore had to act to protect the BBC's finances, and to avoid the complete breakdown of the scheme. A simple solution would have been to abolish the scheme, but we did not want to take away a long-standing concession which had benefited many people. We therefore considered a number of options for change. These included the possibility of linking entitlement to a social security or other benefit; but there was no consensus as to the most appropriate linkage, and to grant the concession to pensioners receiving a particular benefit would have provoked claims for similar treatment from non-pensioners in receipt of the same, or broadly comparable, benefit. That would have widened the scope of the scheme considerably, and could have been even more anomalous than the previous arrangements.
Moreover, we believe that that type of approach would have been wrong in principle. The television licence fee is not a proper instrument of social policy. The right way to help the less well-off is through the pensions and benefits system, leaving it to individuals to decide for themselves how best to spend their own money. After much thought, therefore, we concluded that the most sensible thing to do was to restore the underlying intention of the scheme. As I explained earlier, this was to benefit retirement pensioners and disabled people living in residential homes, or in sheltered housing schemes which were directly comparable with such homes.
To give effect to this decision, we introduced new regulations which defined more closely the type of sheltered accommodation that would qualify in future. These regulations came into force on 19 May 1988.
To qualify as equivalent to a residential home under the new regulations, sheltered accommodation must now satisfy the following conditions. First, it must form part of a group of at least four dwellings within a common and exclusive boundary. That is where the examples that my hon. Friend gave fall outside the rules. Secondly, it must be specially provided by way of erection or conversion for occupation only by retirement pensioners or disabled people. Thirdly, it must be provided or run by a local authority or a housing association. Fourthly, it must be served by a full-time or residents warden. Fifthly, there must be a communal facility within the boundary intended to meet the need of the resident. Perhaps I might explain why we imposed those conditions and say a little about how we apply them in practice.

Mr. Devlin: I am dealing with a case where concessionary television licences have been withdrawn because the buildings are not joined together. That was not on my hon. Friend's list of five conditions. I raised the matter with the Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor), one Question Time but I have received no answer since.

Mr. Lloyd: The concession would not have been withdrawn from someone who was in receipt of the concession. Nor would it have been withdrawn because the buildings were not joined together. It might have been withdrawn because the buildings were not within an exclusive boundary. I cannot deal from the Dispatch Box with a case of which I know nothing except what my hon. Friend has just said. If he would like to communicate with me about it, I shall be happy to reply and explain.
The reason why there must be a group of four dwellings within a common boundary is that the housing must be seen to form a cohesive, self-contained group, encompassing all and only the accommodation in question—just like a residential home.
We cannot accept, for instance, that a line drawn on a map round some parts of a mixed housing estate constitutes a common and exclusive boundary for the purposes of the regulations.
Thus, sheltered housing interspersed with mainstream housing cannot qualify. Nor can sheltered housing units physically separated from others by things such a shops, car parks or non-sheltered housing be regarded as part of the same scheme for concessionary television licence purposes.
We realise that local authorities sometimes choose to regard these separated housing units as part of a single scheme for their own administrative purposes, and find it hard to understand why we cannot do the same. The difficulty is that, when running a statutory scheme, it must be made clear—the Kirklees judgment established that—which accommodation qualifies and which does not. Hence our insistence on comparability with a residential home and the need for a common and exclusive boundary.
It would have been extremely difficult to devise a formula that would have allowed some separated housing units in reasonably close proximity to qualify, while excluding other units further afield which did not seem to

be part of the scheme. If we had sought to do that, we should have provided God's gift to anomaly, to use my hon. Friend's colourful phrase. That would have been unworkable in practice and would undoubtedly have produced those anomalies on which the Kirklees judgment was predicated.
I now turn to the warden cohdition. In our deliberations, we considered carefully whether it would be right to include schemes served by a visiting or mobile warden. That is the case in my hon. Friend's constituency. We concluded that it would not. We recognise that many local authorities see mobile wardens as a more cost-effective way of caring for the needs of their elderly residents, and we welcome that. But the fact remains that to extend the scheme in that way would run counter to the long-standing principle. The reason for including sheltered housing schemes in the first place was that, as generally organised, they were regarded as being on par with residential homes, including the provision of resident warden.
My hon. Friend made several suggestions about how we might consider the rules. Obviously, we shall keep the scheme under review and make a particular point of reviewing his suggestions, but we can offer no prospect of further change, and I would mislead the House if I said otherwise. The ministerial discretion would be a vehicle for huge further anomalies and further opportunities to take these matters to court. Therefore, we shall not follow that avenue. We shall look carefully at his suggestions and those of any other hon. Member or organisation. I can see no real opportunity for any change in the foreseeable future.

Mr. Temple-Morris: rose—

Mr. Lloyd: As the time is coming when I must sit down, I cannot give way to my hon. Friend. I am grateful to him for enabling me to set out this complex issue which, although designed as a helpful concession is, alas, still a source of misunderstanding and resentment.

The motion having been made after Ten o-clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-four minutes to Eleven o'clock.